Read Online The Power and the Glory by William C. Hammond - Free Book Online

of the great bay, an inner harbor affording excellent anchorage, the many rivers and streams. The broad and deep Patapsco provided a waterway through the heart of Baltimore much as the Charles did in Boston, while myriad other waterways meandered among the wheat fields and pastures and orchards to the north and south. These swift-flowing streams drained the Tidewater and powered the local millstones that in earlier years had provided the wherewithal to feed General Washington’s army. Also as in Boston, white church steeples dominated within the city limits and long stone warehouses lined the quays. The latter stored the local produce of farmers and millers and fishermen that would either be sold outright at nearby Lexington Market, an area of retail commerce not unlike Faneuil Hall in Boston, or shipped off to some other port.
    The city formed an imposing panorama, but that was not what commanded Richard’s attention as Elizabeth coasted inward from the outer reaches of Baltimore Harbor under mainsail and jib. He focused his glass instead on an area he estimated to be a mile downriver and to the east of Baltimore proper, down to where the Patapsco joined forces with a smaller river—Harris Creek, he recalled from Truxtun’s correspondence. There, across a narrow span of water from what the chart identified as Whetstone Point, secured broadside to him alongside a sturdy wooden structure providing dockage for the David Stodder Shipyard visible in the immediate background, lay USS Constellation .
    â€œBring her fifty feet off her beam, Mr. Wadsworth,” he said, the calm in his voice belying his inner excitement. “See that schooner there under sail? We’ll drop anchor where she is now.”
    â€œAye, Captain.”
    Richard again lifted the glass to his eye. He saw no activity on board the frigate, though he could hear the distant rasp of saws, the ringing of hammers and caulking mallets, the pounding of iron on anvils—sounds emanating either from on board the ship or beyond in the shipyard, he couldn’t tell which. He placed the glass back in its becket by the binnacle and walked forward, his senses stirred by the very sight of her.
    She was far from sea-ready. Only two of her three masts had been
stepped, and those just the lower ones on her mizzen and mainmast: two black spars rising up aft and amidships, bereft of yards or rigging or topmasts or shrouds. Forward of the mainmast was blank space: nothing to see there beyond a rounded iron smokestack jutting up over the bulwarks like a crooked black finger pointing forward. Nor had the jib boom been adjoined to the bowsprit. One day the stubby thumb jutting out from the ship’s stem would be a long, thin, graceful arm pointing skyward at a forty-five-degree angle. The fact that the bowsprit shrouds and bobstays were in place suggested that day might come soon.
    As Elizabeth came abeam of Constellation , Richard’s gaze swept down the frigate’s entire length. She was painted black except for a broad white stripe running along her gun-port strake. Her rounded bow boasted a fine sweep, her stern a jaunty undercut. But what impressed Richard most was her sheer size. She was a fifth rate, a frigate, but really she was a hybrid between a traditionally built Royal Navy frigate and a ship of the line. Except that this ship, just as he had observed on Constitution in Boston, had a flush deck: no raised quarterdeck, no forecastle, no substantial deck structure of any kind marred the perfection of her lines.
    His view was temporarily lost as Elizabeth swung into the wind. His own ship’s single quadrilateral sail began to dance about as she came to a virtual stop in the face of the gentle breeze.
    â€œAway anchor!” Wadsworth shouted. In short order, both jib and mainsail were doused and furled to their booms and the sloop was bobbing at her ease upon the sun-jeweled water of the Chesapeake.
    â€œShall I lower away your