[134] Secretary to the Admiralty, In-Letters, May, 1814, vol. 505, p. 777.
[135] Naval Chronicle, vol. xxx, p. 413.
[136] Broke, in his letter of challenge, "was disappointed that, after various verbal messages sent into Boston, Commodore Rodgers, with the 'President' and 'Congress,' had eluded the 'Shannon' and 'Tenedos,' by sailing the first chance, after the prevailing easterly winds had obliged us to keep an offing from the coast."
[137] For the reason here assigned, and others mentioned in the narrative, the author has preferred to follow in the main James' account, analyzed, and compared with Broke's report (Naval Chronicle, vol. xxx. p. 83), and with the testimony in the Court of Inquiry held in Boston on the surrender of the "Chesapeake," and in the resultant courts martial upon Lieutenant Cox and other persons connected with the ship, which are in the Navy Department MSS. The official report of Lieutenant Budd, the senior surviving officer of the "Chesapeake", is published in Niles' Register (vol. iv, p. 290), which gives also several unofficial statements of onlookers, and others.
[138] Not "across"; the distinction is important, being decisive of general raking direction.
[139] Actually, a contemporary account, borrowed by the British "Naval Chronicle" (vol. xxx. p. 161) from a Halifax paper, but avouched as trustworthy, says the "Chesapeake" was terribly battered on the larboard bow as well as quarter. The details in the text indicate merely the local preponderance of injury, and the time and manner of its occurrence.
[140] A slight qualification is here needed, in that of the injured of the "Shannon" some were hurt in the boarding, not by the cannonade; but the general statement is substantially accurate.
[141] Decatur to Navy Department. Captains' Letters, June, 1813.
[142] Decatur to Navy Department. Captains' Letters, June, 1813.
[143] Naval Chronicle, vol. xxix. p. 497.