The turning point in the action just described was the winding of the Saratoga, so successfully accomplished, and next in importance was the defence of the rear of the line by the Ticonderoga, under Lieutenant Cassin. Once or twice the nearest vessels thought his vessel in flames, in consequence of the awful rapidity of her fire.
The Saratoga was twice on fire, from hot shot thrown from the Confiance, and her spanker was nearly consumed. The English flag-ship had a party of artillerists on board and a furnace for heating hot shot.
Captain McDonough, whose reputation as an accomplished officer was before high, gained a great accession of reputation from this day’s proceedings. His disposition for receiving the attack was highly judicious and seamanlike. By the manner in which he anchored his vessels, with the shoals so near the rear of his line as to cover that extremity, and the land of Cumberland Head so near his broadside as necessarily to bring the enemy within reach of his carronades, he made all his force completely available. The English were not quite near enough to give to carronades their full effect, but this disadvantage was unavoidable, the assailing party having, of course, the choice of the distance.
“The personal deportment of Captain McDonough in this engagement was the subject of general admiration in his little squadron. His coolness was undisturbed, throughout all the trying scenes on board his own ship, and, although lying against a vessel of double the force and nearly double the tonnage of the Saratoga, he met and resisted her attack with a constancy that seemed to set defeat at defiance.” The winding of the Saratoga, under such circumstances, exposed, as she was, to the raking fire of the Confiance and Linnet, especially the latter, was a bold, seamanlike, and masterly measure, that required unusual decision and fortitude to imagine and execute.
Most men would have believed that, without a single gun on the side engaged, a fourth of their people cut down, and their ship a wreck, enough injury had been received to justify submission; but McDonough found the means to secure a victory, even in the desperate situation of the Saratoga.
Captain Downie’s personal conduct and gallantry were beyond censure, yet the prudence and the nautical merits of his mode of attack have been much censured.
The Confiance had been built in so short a time, and by exertions so great, as to put it out of the power of the Americans to construct a vessel of her size in sufficient season to meet her, and it would be accusing the enemy of imbecility to suppose that, after the known result of many combats, he had not made his vessel of ample force to ensure victory.
Few naval men will deny that a ship with the gun-deck dimensions, metal and battery of a 44, ought to have been fully equal, at least, to contend with two such vessels as the Saratoga and Eagle. This admitted, it follows that Downie had much the superior force.
The plan of the campaign that was destroyed by this defeat; the high objects in view; the fact that the English were the assailants, and that they could not but know the force they were to attack, together with all the attendant circumstances, were so many assurances that the battle of Plattsburg Bay was fought, on the part of the enemy, with a confidence of victory only justified by this known advantage. The very name given to their largest ship was a pledge to this effect.
Sir James Yeo, whose command extended to Lake Champlain, complained that Captain Downie had been hurried into action by the Governor General, before he was prepared; but he did not complain of an insufficiency of force. That Downie went into action before his own crew and vessel had been long subject to drill and preparation, is true; but McDonough was laboring under precisely the same disadvantage.