However, in December, 1813, she was ready for sea, and with a new crew of well-selected men under Captain Charles Stewart, she sailed on a little cruise that neither added to nor detracted from her fame. Leaving Boston on the 30th of the month, she was for seventeen days at sea without seeing a sail. On February 14th, however, on the coast of Surinam, she overhauled the British war-schooner _Picton_, of sixteen guns, which she captured together with a letter of marque that was in convoy. It is perhaps worth noting that the difference between a letter of marque and a privateer is this: while both are licensed to prey on the enemy, the principal business of the letter of marque is to carry cargo. [Illustration: Charles Stewart. _From a painting by Sully, at the Naval Academy, Annapolis._] On working her way homeward the _Constitution_ fell in with the thirty-six-gun British frigate _La Pique_, Captain Maitland, off Porto Rico. Time had been, and that not so long before, when a British frigate of that size would have come booming down on the _Constitution_ eager for a fight. But the results of a few such boomings had taken the “uncircumspect gallantry” out of the British Admiralty if not out of all the British commanders. Captain Maitland had written orders not to engage a ship of the weight of the _Constitution_, and he up-helm and ran for it. Night coming on, he escaped through Mona passage. James says that the crew of _La Pique_ felt so very badly when they found that they were to run instead of fight, that they positively refused to take their evening’s allowance of grog. The _Constitution_ arrived off Cape Ann on April 3, 1814, and there found the two big British frigates _Junon_ and _Tenedos_ in chase of her. By throwing over provisions and starting her water the _Constitution_ reached the harbor of Marblehead. This port was undefended by forts, and it is asserted by the British that Captain Parker, of the _Tenedos_, wanted to go in and have a fight, but was prevented by Captain Upton, of the _Junon_, who was the ranking officer. In any event, they did not go in nor did they prevent the _Constitution_ leaving Marblehead for Salem soon afterward. Then she returned to Boston once more and there she remained until December 17, 1814, when she sailed out of Boston, still under command of Captain Stewart, while the blockading ships were temporarily off port. And then came the cruise in which, as Maclay says, “she achieved her greatest triumph and performed her most brilliant service.” [Illustration: The _Constitution’s_ Escape from the _Tenedos_ and _Junon_. _From an old wood-cut._]