As usual, much controversy was excited in regard to the numbers of crew and armament of the two vessels.
An extract from a letter from Commodore Hull to Commodore Bainbridge, dated September 10th, 1813, is of great interest. Hull writes:
“I yesterday visited the two brigs, and was astonished to see the difference of injury sustained in the action. The Enterprise has but one eighteen-pound shot in her hull, one in her main-mast, and one in her foremast; her sails are much cut with grape-shot, but no injury was done by them.
“The Boxer has eighteen or twenty eighteen-pound shot in her hull, most of them at the water’s edge; several stands of grape-shot in her side, and such a quantity of smaller grape that I didn’t undertake to count them. Her masts, sails, and spars are literally cut to pieces; several of her guns dismounted and unfit for service. To give an idea, I inform you that I counted in her main-mast alone three eighteen-pound shot-holes.
“I find it impossible to get at the number killed, as no papers are found by which we can ascertain it. I, however, counted upwards of ninety hammocks that were in her nettings, besides several beds without hammocks. I have no doubt that she carried one hundred men on board.”
The exact number on board the Enterprise was one hundred and two.
In addition to the particulars thus officially given, from other sources it was ascertained that the Enterprise rated as 12 guns, but carried 16—viz., 14 eighteen-pound carronades and 2 long nines; her officers and crew consisted of one hundred and two persons, and her burden was about two hundred and sixty-five tons.
The Boxer rated as a 14-gun brig, but carried 18, disposed as follows: 16 eighteen-pound carronades in her broadsides and 2 long nines on deck. She was very heavily built, and was about three hundred tons in burden.
Soon after the arrival of the Enterprise and her prize at Portland the bodies of the two dead commanders were brought on shore in ten-oared barges rowed at minute strokes by masters of ships, and accompanied by a procession of almost all the barges and boats in the harbor. Minute-guns were fired from the vessels, the same ceremony was performed over each body, and the procession moved through the streets, preceded by the selectmen and the municipal officers, and guarded by the crew of the Enterprise, all the officers of that vessel and of the Boxer acting as joint mourners.
It is a strange fact that Burrows had never been in a battle before, and that McCall, on whom had devolved the responsibility of command, had never previously heard the sound of a hostile shot.
The losses during the action were, as near as could be ascertained, as follows:
The Boxer, twenty-eight killed and fourteen wounded; and the Enterprise, one killed and thirteen wounded, three of whom afterwards died.