That pealed the Armada's knell!
The mist was cleared,--a wreath of stars
Rose o'er the crimsoned swell,
And, wavering from its haughty peak,
The cross of England fell!
--Holmes.


THE CRUISE OF THE "WASP"

In the war of 1812 the little American navy, including only a
dozen frigates and sloops of war, won a series of victories
against the English, the hitherto undoubted masters of the sea,
that attracted an attention altogether out of proportion to the
force of the combatants or the actual damage done. For one
hundred and fifty years the English ships of war had failed to
find fit rivals in those of any other European power, although
they had been matched against each in turn; and when the unknown
navy of the new nation growing up across the Atlantic did what no
European navy had ever been able to do, not only the English and
Americans, but the people of Continental Europe as well, regarded
the feat as important out of all proportion to the material
aspects of the case. The Americans first proved that the English
could be beaten at their own game on the sea. They did what the
huge fleets of France, Spain, and Holland had failed to do, and
the great modern writers on naval warfare in Continental Europe-
-men like Jurien de la Graviere--have paid the same attention to
these contests of frigates and sloops that they give to whole
fleet actions of other wars.