Seeing that the fight was won, Hull hauled off to repair his rigging. He must be prepared for another enemy if one should appear. At 7:00 he returned to receive the surrender of Captain Dacres. The prize was so completely wrecked that there was no hope of bringing her into port. After her crew had been taken off, she was set on fire. From the _Constitution’s_ quarter-deck Captain Dacres watched. At length her magazine exploded and she disappeared beneath the waters. A sad omen it must have seemed to the British captain. A new sea power had arrived! That this was fully appreciated is shown by an article in the London _Times_. “It is not merely that an English frigate has been taken, after, what we are free to confess may be called a brave resistance, but that it has been taken by a new enemy, an enemy unaccustomed to such triumphs, and likely to be rendered insolent and confident by them. He must be a weak politician who does not see how important the first triumph is in giving a tone and character to the war. Never before in the history of the world did an English frigate strike to an American.” In our country the effect was magical. Where before political strife, sectional differences, and commercial rivalries combined to bring our people to the verge of civil war and secession, now a wave of wildest enthusiasm spread like a forest fire. For here was a deed of which every man and woman from Maine to Louisiana might be proud. “Thank God for Hull’s victory” was a watchword which passed from state to state. It gave impetus to naval operations and fired our captains with impatience to get to sea and bring the enemy under their guns. It encouraged swarms of privateers to cover the Seven Seas and attack the enemy’s vital trade routes. Admiral Sir John Jervis is reported to have said to his flag captain as he sighted the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent that a victory was very necessary to England at that moment. With equal justice Isaac Hull might have made a similar remark on sighting the _Guerriere_. Our country needed a victory then as it never had before nor has since. Napoleon said that in war the moral is to the physical as three to one; in this case it was many times more. The mere sinking of a frigate meant nothing to England. But the fact that it was sunk by an American frigate at the cost of only fourteen casualties meant a great deal to England, and to our United States. What had been done once could be done again! SCENE II. AND NOW FOR THE “JAVA”