The secretary might have spared himself the trouble of giving further orders, for many a week passed before Rodgers and Decatur bethought themselves of his injunction to return immediately into port after striking the “Belvidera.” They struck the “Belvidera” within forty-eight hours, and lost her; partly on account of the bursting of one of the “President’s” main-deck guns, which blew up the forecastle deck, killing or wounding sixteen men, including Commodore Rodgers himself, whose leg was broken; partly, and according to the British account chiefly, on account of stopping to fire at all, when Rodgers should have run alongside, and in that case could not have failed to capture his enemy. Whatever was the reason, the “Belvidera” escaped; and Rodgers and Decatur, instead of returning immediately into port as they had been ordered, turned in pursuit of the British West India convoy, and hung doggedly to the chase without catching sight of their game, until after three weeks’ pursuit they found themselves within a day’s sail of the British Channel and the convoy safe in British waters. This beginning of the naval war was discouraging. The American ships should not have sailed in a squadron, and only their good luck saved them from disaster. Rodgers and Decatur showed no regard to the wishes of the Government, although had they met with misfortune, the navy would have lost its last hope. Yet if the two commodores had obeyed the secretary’s commands their cruise would probably have been in the highest degree disastrous. The Government’s true intentions have been a matter of much dispute; but beyond a doubt the President and a majority of his advisers inclined to keep the navy within reach at first,--to use them for the protection of commerce, to drive away the British blockaders; and aware that the British naval force would soon be greatly increased, and that the American navy must be blockaded in port, the Government expected in the end to use the frigates as harbor defences rather than send them to certain destruction. With these ideas in his mind Secretary Hamilton, in his orders of June 18, told Rodgers and Decatur that “more extensive” orders should be sent to them on their return to New York. A day or two afterward Secretary Gallatin complained to the President that these orders had not been sent. “I believe the weekly arrivals from foreign ports,” said Gallatin,[328] “will for the coming four weeks average from one to one-and-a-half million dollars a week. To protect these and our coasting vessels, while the British have still an inferior force on our coasts, appears to me of primary importance. I think that orders to that effect, ordering them to cruise accordingly, ought to have been sent yesterday, and that at all events not one day longer ought to be lost.”