She was a powerful vessel, but neither the vessel nor the menace frightened Hull, and he sailed straight for her, holding his fire until he was within fifty yards, when he let fly a broadside and then another, which sent two of her masts by the board, and the third soon followed, leaving her unmanageable. Within a very few minutes, under Hull's raking fire, she was reduced to a "perfect wreck"--so perfect, in fact, that she had to be blown up and sunk, as there was no chance of getting her back to port. The Constitution was practically uninjured, and Hull sailed back to Boston, with his ship crowded with British prisoners. He was welcomed with the wildest enthusiasm, banquets were given in his honor, swords voted him by state legislatures, New York ordered a portrait painted of him, and Congress gave him a gold medal. The War Department discreetly permitted his disobedience of orders to drop out of sight. Hull's victory was not the result of accident, but of long and careful training. He had begun his sea career in the merchant service at the age of fourteen, was a captain at the age of twenty, and entered the navy in 1798. He soon gained a high reputation for seamanship, and his genius for handling a ship under all conditions was one of the most important factors in his success. He saved his ship on one occasion, when she was becalmed and practically surrounded by a powerful British fleet, by "kedging"--in other words, sending a row-boat out with an anchor, which was dropped as far ahead as the boat could take it, and the ship pulled up to it by means of the windlass. As soon as the British saw him doing this, they tried it too, but Hull managed to get away from them by almost superhuman exertions. He served in the navy for many years after his memorable victory over the Guerriere, but never achieved another so notable. The second capture of a British frigate in the war of 1812 was made by Stephen Decatur, who had distinguished himself years before by an exploit which Lord Nelson called "the most daring act of the age." Decatur, who possessed in unusual degree the dash and brilliance so valuable in a naval commander, came naturally by his love of the sea, for his grandfather had been an officer in the French navy, and his father was a captain in the navy of the United States. Entering the service at the age of eighteen, his first cruise was in the frigate, United States, which he was afterwards to command. He rose steadily in the service and got his first command six years later, being given the sixteen-gun brig Argus, and sent with Commodore Preble to assist in subduing the Barbary corsairs.