Great were the rejoicings when the "Constitution" arrived at Boston with her trophies and prisoners. Men, women, and children vied with each other in demonstrations of delight. We can hardly realize to-day what the people felt at the news of the destruction of a British frigate. To understand the feeling, we must look back at the twenty years during which American ships and American seamen had suffered repeated outrage at the hands of British ships-of-war,--outrage which had been borne only because the young country felt too weak to cope with those forces which had conquered all the navies of the Continent. At the outset, war with such foes offered a dismal prospect. And to think that in the first real encounter on the seas, a veritable pitched battle, these redoubtable champions of the ocean had been so utterly crushed and annihilated that not one fragment remained of their good ship the "Guerrière," which had harried with impunity our very coasters, was something more than men's minds could at once grasp.
For Hull and his companions no reward seemed too great. Feasted in Boston at a great civic banquet, received with an ovation at every town through which he passed, he was for the moment the country's hero. Congress struck a medal in his honor, and votes of thanks were passed by the legislatures of New York and Massachusetts, and by many municipal bodies. The Society of the Cincinnati elected him an honorary member. The citizens of Philadelphia presented to him a great silver vase, and a golden sword whose engraved hilt bore a picture of the battle; the vase and sword may be seen to-day in the hall of the State Department at Washington. Morris was promoted to the rank of captain; and finally Congress passed an act appropriating fifty thousand dollars as a bounty for the officers and seamen of the "Constitution."
What American ships could do in battle, Captain Hull had now shown; and the hopes of the country were aroused, and it began with reason to look for fresh successes. Nor was it destined to be disappointed; for during that memorable autumn of 1812 and the early months of winter there came such a rapid and unbroken succession of naval victories as has fallen to the lot of hardly any nation before or since. And that these victories should have been won by a service that for fifteen years had been treated with derision and contempt even by those in the highest station in the country, who should have given it both honor and support, and that they were won too over the mistress of the seas, made them in people's eyes tenfold more marvellous. It mattered little that the force engaged was small, that in comparison with the great fleet actions of European navies these encounters seemed the battles of pygmies; for their significance as victories was not thereby diminished; whether the force engaged was one ship or fifty ships, the same qualities in officers and men were needed to achieve a victory. The English had been beaten,--beaten in part no doubt by the better quality of American ships, but beaten too by the superior skill and training of American seamen.