This wonderful exploit was celebrated in song, one stanza of which ended
thus:


"From set of sun till rise of morn, through the long September night,
Ninety men against two thousand, and the ninety won the fight;

In the harbor of Fayal the Azore."

While the victory of itself was one of the most remarkable of which
there is any record, it resembled that of Perry on Lake Erie in its
far-reaching consequences. Admiral Cochrane found his ships so crippled
that he returned to England to refit. He then sailed for New Orleans,
which he reached a few days after it had been occupied by General
Jackson. But for the delay caused by his fight with Captain Reid he
would have shut out General Jackson from the city and prevented his
winning the most glorious land victory of the whole war.




LESSER WARS.

CHAPTER XIX.


Resentment of the Barbary States--The War with Algiers--Captain
Decatur's Vigorous Course--His Astonishing Success as a Diplomat.