“We find it impossible to get at the number of killed; no papers are found by which we can ascertain it. I, however, counted upwards of ninety hammocks, which were in her netting, with beds in them, besides several beds without hammocks; and she has excellent accommodations for all her officers below in staterooms; so that I have no doubt that she had one hundred men on board. We know that she has several of the Rattler’s men on board.”
As everyone familiar with the old-time warship knows, only the men before the mast and petty officers slept in hammocks. When Commodore Hull estimated “that she had one hundred men on board,” he unquestionably meant men before the mast and petty officers. In corroboration of this is the fact that Captain Blythe was looking for the Enterprise. He had sailed, only a few days before, from St. Johns, “where great exertions were made by the Government officers, as well as the magistrates of the place,” to man and equip her in a perfect manner to fight the Enterprise. The victory of the British frigate Shannon over the Yankee Chesapeake was then but two months old, and Blythe was eager for the honors showered upon Broke. That she sailed from St. Johns with plenty of men is a matter not to be disputed. Moreover, a further reason for supposing that her crew numbered at least one hundred men is found in the fact that James, the oft-quoted British historian, says it numbered “sixty men and six boys.” Recalling the fact that James said that the Java had but three hundred and seventy-seven men on board when her muster-roll showed four hundred and twenty-six; that he systematically understates the British force and overstates the American force in every instance where there was any motive for doing so, and that Benton, the British historian, distinctly says that the British naval authorities deliberately understated British losses in many reports given to the public in those days, it is simply fair to add fifty per cent. to the figures of James in this account. However, it is asserted by the British that twelve of their crew were on shore that morning, and that the four guns fired when their flags were sent aloft and nailed to the mast were fired to recall these twelve, who, however, failed to get on board. This is very likely true. So from the one hundred and four, which all the American accounts of that day say the Boxer had, may be subtracted twelve, leaving ninety-two as the crew of the Boxer.
All of this space seems to be worth giving to the subject only because the British writers without exception twist like a flushed snipe whenever they are started by a Yankee victory over the British, and every well-informed American should have the facts at hand to bring them down.
Of the Boxer’s crew, the British admit that four were killed and seventeen wounded. Lieutenant McCall in his report says that “from information received from the officers of that vessel, it appears there were between twenty and thirty-five killed.” The Enterprise lost four killed and eight wounded.
As to the damage done to the Boxer, it is worth while quoting the words of Commodore Hull’s letter of September 10, 1813 (written by the way, while Perry was winning glory on Lake Erie). He says:
“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, and one in her main-mast, and one in her foremast; her sails are much cut by grape-shot, and there are a great number of grape lodged in her sides, but no injury done by them. The Boxer has eighteen or twenty eighteen-pound shot in her hull, most of them at the water’s edge, and several stands of eighteen-pound grape stick in her side, and such a quantity of small grape that I did not undertake to count them. Her masts, sails, and spars are literally cut to pieces, several of her guns dismounted, and unfit for service; her top-gallant forecastle nearly taken off by the shot, her boats cut to pieces, and her quarters injured in proportion.”
The British historian Allen in his account of this fight says, on page 438, vol. ii.: “The two vessels were much disproportioned in every way. The Boxer measured one hundred and eighty-one, the Enterprise two hundred and forty-five tons. The one was a fine roomy vessel, well manned and equipped, the Boxer a mere gun-brig, unfit for any other purpose than to protect a convoy of coasters from the attack of a French lugger. The result, therefore, cannot cause any surprise.”
As a matter of fact, the Boxer was larger than the Enterprise by thirty-five tons burden, and Allen’s comment is worth quoting to show how a popular British historian misrepresented the little Yankee brig that was built as a schooner to carry a dozen six-pounders.
It was as fair a match as one will commonly find described in history. The Boxer was a few tons larger in size, and her officers had had experience in naval battles. The Americans had more guns and more men, with officers who had not had the experience of the enemy. The Enterprise was old and the Boxer new. But while the number of shot which the Americans could throw at a broadside were in number eight to the British seven, the number of times the British hull was struck was eighteen to the one shot the American hull received.