Just why the British Navy should have felt such great animosity toward this ship is hard to understand in this day. Certainly she was not the most formidable of the American ships. In fact she had been so overloaded with guns that she proved a poor sailer (witness the escape of the _Belvidera_ and the _Curlew_), and eventually, she was hogged so that she was captured (as will be told farther on) in a race where the _Constitution_ would have escaped easily. Nevertheless, the Admiralty, as said, were especially anxious to capture her, and the animosity of the British nation against her was so great that even thirty years after the war was over, the “British Naval Chronicle” still spoke of her as “the waggon”--a term, by the way, that suggests the naval tar’s contempt for hay-makers, and recalls the deeds of the Yankee hay-makers when afloat in the war of the Revolution. Quite different was the luck of the sloop _Argus_, the smallest of the ships that sailed with Rodgers in that first Yankee squadron cruise of the War of 1812. When she returned from that cruise, William H. Allen, who had gained fame for his part in the capture of the _Macedonian_, was placed in command of her. The reader will remember that it was Allen who fired on the _Leopard_ when she attacked the _Chesapeake_ in time of peace to re-impress some American seamen, carrying a coal from the galley fire in his naked hand for the purpose for lack of matches. With this incident in mind to indicate his character, the uninformed reader will be prepared for the story of his fate which follows. [Illustration: The _Argus_ Burning British Vessels. _From an old wood-cut._]