Upon this first recommendation followed the discontinuance of building ships for ocean service, and the initiation of the gunboat policy; culminating, when war began, in the decision of the administration to lay up the ships built for war, to keep them out of British hands. The urgent remonstrances of two or three naval captains obtained the reversal of this resolve, and thereby procured for the country those few successes which, by a common trick of memory, have remained the characteristic feature of the War of 1812.
Note.—After writing the engagement between the "Boxer" and the "Enterprise," the author found among his memoranda, overlooked, the following statement from the report of her surviving lieutenant, David McCreery: "I feel it my duty to mention that the bulwarks of the 'Enterprise' were proof against our grape, when her musket balls penetrated through our bulwarks." (Canadian Archives, M. 389, 3. p. 87.) It will be noted that this does not apply to the cannon balls, and does not qualify the contrast in gunnery.
FOOTNOTES:
[128] Broke's Letter to Lawrence, June, 1813. Naval Chronicle, vol. xxx. p. 413.
[129] Rodgers' Report of this cruise is in Captains' Letters, Sept. 27, 1813.
[130] Captains' Letters, Dec. 14, 1813.
[131] Captains' Letters, June 3, 1812.
[132] The Department's orders to Evans and the letter transferring them to Lawrence, captured in the ship, can be found published in the Report on Canadian Archives, 1896, p. 74. A copy is attached to the Record of the subsequent Court of Inquiry, Navy Department MSS.
[133] James' Naval History, vol. vi., edition of 1837. The account of the action between the "Chesapeake" and "Shannon" will be found on pp. 196-206.