It is believed that no English official account of this action was ever published, but the Barbadoes statement makes the joint loss of the two ships ten killed and twenty-eighty wounded. Other English accounts make it forty-one in all. Captain Stewart’s account of the wounded must certainly have been correct, whatever may have been the other estimates he made. Their loss, when exposed to the heavy and destructive fire of the Constitution, handled with the skill that that frigate was, could not fail to be very considerable.
The Constitution had three men killed and twelve wounded.
By midnight of the 20th the frigate was ready for another engagement. She was not very much cut up for, although it was nearly four hours from the time the action began until the Levant struck, the actual fighting did not occupy three-quarters of an hour.
Considering that it was a night action the execution, on both sides, was remarkable; the English firing much better than usual.
The Constitution was hulled oftener in this action, than in both her previous battles, although she suffered less in crew than in the combat she had with the Java. She had not an officer hurt.
The manner in which Captain Stewart handled his ship on this occasion was the subject of praise among nautical men, of all nations, as it was an unusual thing for a single ship to engage two opponents and avoid being raked. So far from this occurring to the Constitution, however, she actually raked both her opponents, and the manner in which she backed and filled, in the smoke, forcing her two antagonists down to leeward, when they were endeavoring to cross her stern, or her fore-foot, is as brilliant manœuvring as any recorded in naval annals.
It is due to a gallant enemy to say that Captain Douglas commanded the entire respect of the Americans by his intrepidity and perseverance in standing by his consort. The necessity of securing possession of the Cyane employed the Constitution for some time, and gave the Levant an opportunity of making off; but of this he nobly refused to avail himself.
Captain Stewart proceeded, with his two prizes, to Porto Praya, in Saint Jago, Cape de Verdes, where he arrived on the 10th of March. At this place a vessel was chartered for a cartel, and more than a hundred of the prisoners were landed, to assist in fitting her for sea.
On the 11th of March, at a little after noon, while a party from the Constitution was absent in a cutter, to bring the cartel close down to the frigate, Mr. Shubrick, who was acting as First Lieutenant, was walking the quarter-deck, when his attention was attracted by a hurried exclamation from one of the English midshipmen, that a large ship was in the offing. A severe reprimand, in a low tone, followed from one of the English Captains. On looking over the quarter Mr. Shubrick ascertained the cause. The sea, outside the roads, was covered with a heavy fog, which did not, however, rise very high, so that above it the upper sails of a large vessel were visible.
She was close hauled, on the wind, standing in shore, and evidently coming into the roads.