Quite broadly, the issue of national honor was frequently invoked when people discussed the treatment of the nation and its flag abroad. On an international level, the mutually understood honor code was shared by officers in Britain, France, Spain, and, to a great extent, other navies of the period.8
Maritime Code Duello Standards and Expectations
The honor code applied to warships in very conscious and explicit ways, in effect regulating encounters between naval ships and the way naval battles were fought in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The expectations and standards of the personal honor code extended to a wide variety of ship-handling and battle etiquette issues, not only for U.S. officers but also for the officers of naval ships of Britain, France, and Spain in the period.
The codes were not always explicitly stated. As in encounters between gentlemen, one ship might offer a challenge to another. This could result from an insult to the flag or to a ship. When at war, the master of a naval ship would sometimes directly issue a challenge to an equivalent enemy ship.9 A duel between warships was explicitly characterized as two equally matched ships confronting each other—frigate to frigate, for example.10 Sometimes, the British Admiralty forbade its officers from entering single ship-on-ship frigate battles on the grounds that some foreign “frigates” were more equivalent to a Royal Navy line-of-battle ship (in modern parlance, a battleship), and thus, to avoid a ship-on-ship duel was no reflection on honor.11
Not only were one-on-one ship engagements rhetorically dealt with as duels, but they were sometimes specifically set up in much the same fashion as gentleman-to-gentleman duels, with a location specified and rules of engagement agreed between combatants, often ensuring no third ship become involved that would make the battle unequal. At sea and on shore, it was understood that the weapons should be equivalent. Thus, there was great emphasis at the time and in later literature on the issue of equivalency of ship size, speed, manning, and weight of guns. Frequently, at-sea engagements were noted as occurring within “pistol shot” distance.
The victory of a lesser-armed ship against a better-equipped ship represented an unequal contest; such a victory demonstrated manly qualities: seamanship, bravery, and superior fortitude at the guns. Skills, character, bravery, and honor were expected. These qualities of the individual were also attributed racially to the seamen, and the vocabulary of honor was often employed when discussing military engagements. A reverse victory (of a stronger ship against a weaker) should not have been fought, but the weaker could simply have evaded the encounter or, if trapped, should have surrendered with honor; for a stronger ship to continue to fire on a weaker ship without providing a chance for honorable surrender was a violation of the code and was dastardly.
On the high seas, ships were due a set of ritualized courtesies, such as greetings and the showing of flags; outrages or affronts could come in the form of the inappropriate use of a naval or armed coastal patrol. Apologies could take the form of firing gun salutes. Gentlemen on board a ship (officers and midshipmen) were expected to demonstrate courage by standing up when being fired on. The lower orders (especially passengers who were nongentlemen or women and children) were expected to lie down, go below, or take cover. Someone claiming to be a gentleman would lose that status if he took cover; a midshipman (a youth) could be forgiven lying down because of his age. Officers and petty officers who took cover would be court-martialed.12
U.S. naval officers were particularly prone to engage in duels in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Naval historian Charles Oscar Paullin wrote, “During the first fifty years of the Old Navy, 1798–1848, the mortality of naval officers resulting from duels was two-thirds that resulting from naval wars.”13
In addition to using the same language at sea as was used to talk about honor on land, seamen followed practices in maritime engagements that very directly reflected the personal code of honor: insults were avenged, challenges were issued, to refuse a challenge was dastardly, the stuff one was made of (e.g., whether one was red-blooded and courageous) was revealed in battle or in a duel, ceasing resistance after being wounded (overwhelmingly damaged in ship battle) was expected in order to preserve life.
An unarmed ship that was fired on was being treated as of lower social standing than the ship that fired; the firing on an unarmed U.S. merchant ship by a ship crewed or controlled by people perceived as racially or politically inferior was therefore an outrage. U.S. officers often regarded Spanish Americans as inferior; Spaniards themselves were sometimes so regarded. U.S. seamen and naval personnel did not perceive British, French, and other northern Europeans as ethnically inferior, but all people of color were seen as lower caste and, therefore, any action by them against a U.S. ship was an outrage. The notorious capture and retention as forced labor of U.S. crews by the corsairs of the Barbary States were perhaps the most famous such outrages of the era. Americans perceived the North Africans as “primitive, sordid, and cruel.” The term “outrage” is often encountered in reference to episodes at sea in this and later periods.14
Historical treatments written later in the nineteenth century (and some written in the twentieth century) reflected many of the underlying values of the maritime honor code: naval officers were expected to be cool under fire, equivalence of ships was considered in evaluating the performance of officers, and officers and men desired a fair fight. Mines (known then as “torpedoes”) were regarded as “infernal machines.” Because they provided no opportunity for a fair fight, they were despised by naval officers.15
That naval officers, drawn from the gentleman class, would carry the values of the honor code to their conduct as officers on board ships is perfectly understandable. Their definitions of proper personal behavior, particularly in situations involving mortal risk, would naturally carry over to conduct in warfare or in situations in which well-armed potential adversaries met in the lawless reaches of the high seas. Exchanges of identification; careful determination of whether a strange ship was a friend, foe, or neutral; and determination of whether that ship should display deference were all regulated by the mutually understood rhetoric and rules of gentlemanly intercourse. Because these values were shared by officers of the English, French, Spanish, and other navies, most encounters between ships had a degree of predictability. Identification by flag and hailing within earshot were crucial parts of ship-on-ship behavior at sea.
For these reasons, the naval honor code had certain very practical functions, not only for the United States but for all the navies of the period. In the sailing ship era, when armed warships of different nations encountered each other at sea, the rituals and practices embodied in the honor code actually prevented unnecessary loss of life. The understanding that a lesser-armed ship (such as a frigate) could honorably surrender without an extended exchange of gunfire to a heavier and better-armed line-of-battle ship meant that the surrendering officers and men could live; later, they might be released under a prisoner exchange or cartel, or peace treaty, and live to fight another day. In strict terms of labor and warfighting capability, this aspect of the naval honor code had a humane, practical function. The practices spelled out in documents of the era were all quite suited to the demands of independently sailing naval and merchant ships in a time before rapid radio communication between ship and shore or ship and ship.
So, stripped of the emotional, symbolic, and rhetorical appeals to underlying psychological values of the era, the U.S. flag on board naval ships was recognized and respected internationally for practical economic and military reasons. Similar principles carried over to merchant shipping and the merchant flag, as did the need to prevent the violation of those standards on U.S. naval and merchant ships.
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