and Shannon) the combatants were about equal in strength, the Americans having slightly the advantage; in all the others but two, the victors combined superiority of force with superiority of skill. In but two cases, those of the Argus and Epervier, could any lack of courage be imputed to the vanquished. The second year alone showed to the advantage of the British; the various encounters otherwise were as creditable to the Americans at the end as at the beginning of the war. This is worth attending to, because many authors speak as if the successes of the Americans were confined to the first year. It is true that no frigate was taken after the first year, but this was partly because the strictness of the blockade kept the American frigates more in port, while the sloops put out to sea at pleasure, and partly because after that year the British 18-pounder frigates either cruised in couples, or, when single, invariably refused, by order of the Board of Admiralty, an encounter with a 24-pounder; and though much of the American success was unquestionably to be attributed to more men and heavier guns, yet much of it was not. The war itself gives us two instances in which defeat was owing solely, it may be said, to inferiority of force, courage and skill being equal. The Wasp was far heavier than the Reindeer, and, there being nothing to choose between them in any thing else, the damage done was about proportionate to this difference. It follows, as a matter of course, that the very much greater disproportion in loss in the cases of the Avon, Epervier, etc., where the disproportion in force was much less (they mounting 32's instead of 24's, and the victors being all of the same class), is only to be explained by the inferiority in skill on the part of the vanquished. These remarks apply just as much to the Argus. The Reindeer, with her 24's, would have been almost exactly on a par with her, and yet would have taken her with even greater ease than the Peacock did with her 32's. In other words, the only effect of our superiority in metal, men, and tonnage was to increase somewhat the disparity in loss. Had the Congress and Constellation, instead of the United States and Constitution, encountered the Macedonian and Java, the difference in execution would have been less than it was, but the result would have been unchanged, and would have been precisely such as ensued when the Wasp met the Frolic, or the Hornet the Penguin. On the other hand, had the Shannon met the Constitution there would have been a repetition of the fight between the Wasp and Reindeer; for it is but fair to remember that great as is the honor that Broke deserves, it is no more than that due to Manners.
The Republic of the United States owed a great deal to the excellent make and armament of its ships, but it owed still more to the men who were in them. The massive timbers and heavy guns of Old Ironsides would have availed but little had it not been for her able commanders and crews. Of all the excellent single-ship captains, British or American, produced by the war, the palm should be awarded to Hull. 433 The deed of no other man (excepting Macdonough) equalled his escape from Broke's five ships, or surpassed his half-hour's conflict with the Guerrière. After him, almost all the American captains deserve high praise—Decatur, Jones, Blakely, Biddle, Bainbridge, Lawrence, Burrows, Allen, Warrington, Stewart, Porter. It is no small glory to a country to have had such men upholding the honor of its flag. On a par with the best of them are Broke, Manners, and also Byron and Blythe. It must be but a poor-spirited American whose veins do not tingle with pride when he reads of the cruises and fights of the sea-captains, and their grim prowess, which kept the old Yankee flag floating over the waters of the Atlantic for three years, in the teeth of the mightiest naval power the world has ever seen; but it is equally impossible not to admire Broke's chivalric challenge and successful fight, or the heroic death of the captain of the Reindeer.
Nor can the war ever be fairly understood by any one who does not bear in mind that the combatants were men of the same stock, who far more nearly resembled each other than either resembled any other nation. I honestly believe that the American sailor offered rather better material for a man-of-warsman than the British, because the freer institutions of his country (as compared with the Britain of the drunken Prince Regent and his dotard father—a very different land from the present free England) and the peculiar exigencies of his life tended to make him more intelligent and self-reliant; but the difference, when there was any, was very small, and disappeared entirely when his opponents had been drilled for any length of time by men like Broke or Manners. The advantage consisted in the fact that our average commander was equal to the best, and higher than the average, of the opposing captains; and this held good throughout the various grades of the officers. The American officers knew they had redoubtable foes to contend with, and made every preparation accordingly. Owing their rank to their own exertions, trained by practical experience and with large liberty of action, they made every effort to have their crews in the most perfect state of skill and discipline. In Commodore Tatnall's biography (p. 15) it is mentioned that the blockaded Constellation had her men well trained at the guns and at target practice, though still lying in the river, so as to be at once able to meet a foe when she put out to sea. The British captain, often owing his command to his social standing or to favoritism, hampered by red tape, 434 and accustomed by 20 years' almost uninterrupted success to regard the British arms as invincible, was apt to laugh at all manoeuvring, 435 and scorned to prepare too carefully for a fight, trusting to the old British "pluck and luck" to carry him through. So, gradually he forgot how to manoeuvre or to prepare. The Java had been at sea six weeks before she was captured, yet during that time the entire exercise of her crew at the guns had been confined to the discharge of six broadsides of blank cartridges (James, vi, 184); the Constitution, like the Java, had shipped an entirely new and raw crew previous to her first cruise, and was at sea but five weeks before she met the Guerrière, and yet her men had been trained to perfection. This is a sufficient comment on the comparative merits of Captain Hull and Captain Lambert. The American prepared himself in every possible way; the Briton tried to cope with courage alone against courage united to skill. His bad gunnery had not been felt in contending with European foes 436 as unskilful as himself. Says Lord Howard Douglass (p. 3): "We entered with too much confidence into a war with a marine much more expert than any of our European enemies * * * there was inferiority of gunnery as well as of force," etc. Admiral Codrington, commenting on the Epervier's loss, says, as before quoted, that, owing to his being chosen purely for merit, the American captain was an overmatch for the British, unless "he encountered our best officers on equal terms."
The best criticism on the war is that given by Capitaine Jurien de la Gravière. 437 After speaking of the heavier metal and greater number of men of the American ships, he continues: "And yet only an enormous superiority in the precision and rapidity of their fire can explain the difference in the losses sustained by the combatants.* * * Nor was the skill of their gunners the only cause to which the Americans owed their success. Their ships were faster; the crews, composed of chosen men, manoeuvred with uniformity and precision; their captains had that practical knowledge which is only to be acquired by long experience of the sea; and it is not to be wondered at that the Constitution, when chased during three days by a squadron of five English frigates, succeeded in escaping, by surpassing them in manoeuvring, and by availing herself of every ingenious resource and skilful expedient that maritime science could suggest. * * * To a marine exalted by success, but rendered negligent by the very habit of victory, the Congress only opposed the best of vessels and most formidable of armaments. * * *" 438
It is interesting to compare the results of this inter-Anglian warfare, waged between the Insular and the Continental English, with the results of the contest that the former were at the same time carrying on with their Gallo-Roman neighbors across the channel. For this purpose I shall rely on Troude's "Batailles Navales," which would certainly not give the English more than their due. His account of the comparative force in each case can be supplemented by the corresponding one given in James. Under drawn battles I include all such as were indecisive, in so far that neither combatant was captured; in almost every case each captain claimed that the other ran away.
During the year 1812 to 1815 inclusive, there were eight actions between French and English ships of approximately equal force. In three of these the English were victorious.
In 1812 the Victorious, 74, captured the Rivoli, 74.
COMPARATIVE
