“Right you are, lad, right you are; an’ yet when they heave in sight there’s like to be a stiffish breeze, else Barclay would hold snug in port. Of course it’ll be another matter in case we run into Malden after ’em.”
“You’ve counted up only the guns, Silas,” another sailor cried. “What about the men?”
“There’s where we’re a bit weak, I’ll admit; but a Yankee who’s fightin’ within sight of home should be able to count for more than one Britisher. It’s said Barclay has better than five hundred men, all in good condition—one hundred an’ fifty from the royal navy, eighty Canadian sailors, two hundred and forty soldiers, mostly regulars, an’ a sprinklin’ of Indians. Now Leftenant Forrest tells me we’ve four hundred an’ ninety names on the muster-roll; but one hundred an’ sixteen are on the sick-list, an’ nigh to all of that number too weak to lend a hand at anything. Therefore you can set our force down as three hundred an’ seventy-five all told, one quarter bein’ from Rhode Island, a quarter regular seamen, the third quarter green hands, an’ the balance made up of niggers and Injuns.”
“If that figgerin’ be true, an’ I’m not sayin’ it ain’t, the Britishers have about an hundred an’ twenty-five the best of us,” the sailor who had first spoken said gravely.
“That’s the size of it, lad.”
“Then what about its bein’ our trick to fight at close quarters?”
“We’re bound to do it with the idee of evenin’ up the weight of metal. I’m not allowin’ that the difference in men goes for very much, seein’s how us Yankees are bound to do the most fightin’, in consideration of bein’ at home.”
To my mind the old gunner’s argument was not a good one; we knew full well that the Britishers were as brave as we, and a goodly number of them were near to their homes.
It pleased me that our men should be confident of winning a victory, and yet I feared for the result.
By thinking long on this subject I might have grown timorous while all the others were so brave; but I put the matter from my mind by saying that there were no more signs of an immediate battle than at almost any other time since we crossed the bar of Presque Isle bay, and for the moment I was near to wishing that Commodore Barclay might find it possible to give us the slip.