the coast to serve on the lakes, where work was hard, sickness prevailed, and there was no chance of prize-money. The British government had the great advantage of being able to move its sailors where it pleased, while in the American service, at that period, the men enlisted for particular ships, and the only way to get them for the lakes at all was by inducing portions of crews to volunteer to follow their officers thither. 212 However, the work went on in spite of interruptions. Fresh gangs of shipwrights arrived, and, largely owing to the energy and capacity of the head builder, Mr. Henry Eckford (who did as much as any naval officer in giving us an effective force on Ontario), the Madison was equipped, a small despatch sloop, The Lady of the Lake prepared, and a large new ship, the General Pike, 28, begun, to mount 13 guns in each broadside and 2 on pivots.
Meanwhile Sir George Prevost, the British commander in Canada, had ordered two 24-gun ships to be built, and they were begun; but he committed the mistake of having one laid down in Kingston and the other in York, at the opposite end of the lake. Earle, the Canadian commodore, having proved himself so incompetent, was removed; and in the beginning of May Captain Sir James Lucas Yeo arrived, to act as commander-in-chief of the naval forces, together with four captains, eight lieutenants, twenty-four midshipmen, and about 450 picked seamen, sent out by the home government especially for service on the Canada lakes. 213
The comparative force of the two fleets or squadrons it is hard to estimate. I have already spoken of the difficulty in finding out what guns were mounted on any given ship at a particular time, and it is even more perplexing with the crews. A schooner would make one cruise with but thirty hands; on the next it would appear with fifty, a number of militia having volunteered as marines. Finding the militia rather a nuisance, they would be sent ashore, and on her third cruise the schooner would substitute half a dozen frontier seamen in their place. It was the same with the larger vessels. The Madison might at one time have her full complement of 200 men; a month's sickness would ensue, and she would sail with but 150 effectives. The Pike's crew of 300 men at one time would shortly afterward be less by a third in consequence of a draft of sailors being sent to the upper lakes. So it is almost impossible to be perfectly accurate; but, making a comparison of the various authorities from Lieutenant Emmons to James, the following tables of the forces may be given as very nearly correct. In broadside force I count every pivot gun, and half of those that were not on pivots.
This is not materially different from James' account (p. 356), which gives Chauncy 114 guns, 1,193 men, and 2,121 tons. The Lady of the Lake, however, was never intended for anything but a despatch boat, and the Scourge and Hamilton were both lost before Chauncy actually came into collision with Yeo. Deducting these, in order to compare the two foes, Chauncy had left 11 vessels of 2,265 tons, with 865 men and 92 guns throwing a broadside of 1,230 pounds.
This differs but slightly from James, who gives Yeo 92 guns throwing a broadside of 1,374 pounds, but only 717 men. As the evidence in the court-martial held on Captain Barclay, and the official accounts (on both sides) of Macdonough's victory, convict him of very much underrating the force in men of the British on Erie and Champlain, it can be safely assumed that he has underestimated the force in men on Lake Ontario. By comparing the tonnage he gives to Barclay's and Downie's squadrons with what it really was, we can correct his account of Yeo's tonnage.
The above figures would apparently make the two squadrons about equal, Chauncy having 95 men more, and throwing at a broadside 144 pounds shot less than his antagonist. But the figures do not by any means show all the truth. The Americans greatly excelled in the number and calibre of their long guns. Compared thus, they threw at one discharge 694 pounds of long-gun metal and 536 pounds of carronade metal; while the British only threw from their long guns 180 pounds, and from their carronades 1,194. This unequal distribution of metal was very much in favor of the Americans. Nor was this all. The Pike, with her 15 long 24's in battery was an overmatch for any one of the enemy's vessels, and bore the same relation to them that the Confiance, at a later date, did to Macdonough's squadron. She should certainly have been a match for the Wolfe and Melville together, and the Madison and Oneida for the Royal George and Sydney Smith. In fact, the three heavy American vessels ought to have been an overmatch for the four heaviest of the British squadron, although these possessed the nominal superiority. And in ordinary cases the eight remaining American gun-vessels would certainly seem to be an overmatch for the two British schooners, but it is just here that the difficulty of comparing the forces comes in. When the water was very smooth and the wind light, the long 32's and 24's of the Americans could play havoc with the British schooners, at a distance which would render the carronades of the latter useless. But the latter were built for war, possessed quarters and were good cruisers, while Chauncy's schooners were merchant vessels, without quarters, crank, and so loaded down with heavy metal that whenever it blew at all hard they could with difficulty be kept from upsetting, and ceased to be capable even of defending themselves. When Sir James Yeo captured two of them he would not let them cruise with his other vessels at all, but sent them back to act as gun-boats, in which capacity they were serving when recaptured; this is a tolerable test of their value compared to their opponents. Another disadvantage that Chauncy had to contend with, was the difference in the speed of the various vessels. The Pike and Madison were fast, weatherly ships; but the Oneida was a perfect slug, even going free, and could hardly be persuaded to beat to windward at all. In this respect Yeo was much better off; his six ships were regular men-of-war, with quarters, all of them seaworthy, and fast enough to be able to act with uniformity and not needing to pay much regard to the weather. His force could act as a unit; but Chauncy's could not. Enough wind to make a good working breeze for his larger vessels put all his smaller ones hors de combat: and in weather that suited the latter, the former could not move about at all. When speed became necessary the two ships left the brig hopelessly behind, and either had to do without her, or else perhaps let the critical moment slip by while waiting for her to come up. Some of the schooners sailed quite as slowly; and finally it was found out that the only way to get all the vessels into action at once was to have one half the fleet tow the other half. It was certainly difficult to keep the command of the lake when, if it came on to blow, the commodore had to put into port under penalty of seeing a quarter of his fleet founder before his eyes. These conflicting considerations render it hard to pass judgment; but on the whole it would seem as if Chauncy was the superior in force, for even if his schooners were not counted, his three square-rigged vessels were at least a match for the four square-rigged British vessels, and the two British schooners would not have counted very much in such a conflict. In calm weather he was certainly the superior. This only solves one of the points in which the official letters of the two commanders differ: after every meeting each one insists that he was inferior in force, that the weather suited his antagonist, and that the latter ran away, and got the worst of it; all of which will be considered further on.
In order to settle toward which side the balance of success inclined, we must remember that there were two things the combatants were trying to do viz.:
(1) To damage the enemy directly by capturing or destroying his vessels. This was the only object we had in view in sending out ocean cruisers, but on the lakes it was subordinated to:—
(2) Getting the control of the lake, by which invaluable assistance could be rendered to the army. The most thorough way of accomplishing this, of course, was by destroying the enemy's squadron; but it could also be done by building ships too powerful for him to face, or by beating him in some engagement which, although not destroying his fleet, would force him to go into port. If one side was stronger, then the weaker party by skillful manoeuvring might baffle the foe, and rest satisfied by keeping the sovereignty of the lake disputed; for, as long as one squadron was not undisputed master it could not be of much assistance in transporting troops attacking forts, or otherwise helping the military.
In 1813 the Americans gained the first point by being
