And then as to the cost, while it was perhaps true that the price of a frigate would have built seventy-five boats, a frigate required a crew of but four hundred or four hundred and fifty men, while a flotilla of the forty boats needed to match a frigate required, on the whole, 2,000 men, including three commissioned officers to each boat. Besides, forty gun-boats were never got together in a fleet to attack a frigate.
To all of this must be added the difficulty of finding forty gun-boat captains who would act together in battle, and the trouble in caring for the wounded when a ship had but four feet of head-room below its deck, and the wretched quarters there afforded to the men who had to man the boats.
And if there was lack of concert among the captains of the flotillas in battle, there was a worse lack of discipline on the vessels at all times. Captain Jacob Lewis, previously of the privateer Bunker Hill, was made Commodore of the fleet in New York Harbor. He was as efficient as any man of his experience could be, but his boats were manned by river boatmen; men who, though afraid to go to sea, were yet anxious to get the bounty and the good pay offered to naval seamen—waifs from the streets of the metropolis. “The temptations to insubordination and vice were much greater” in the gun-boats than in any other service. In short, there was every opportunity for drunkenness and the lowest forms of debauchery.
Nevertheless, in spite of the disreputable character of the gun-boat service as a whole, some few of the boats did actually burn gunpowder to the honor of the flag, and in some respects they were valuable, even though they did not fire their big guns once.
For instance, there were several flotillas of them along the coast from Newport, where Perry was in command early in the war, through Long Island Sound to New York. These were kept travelling to and fro convoying the coasting merchantmen, who were thus protected from British privateers and, at times, even from frigates, as well as from the attacks of British naval seamen in the small boats of the blockading squadrons. Moreover, the knowledge that a fleet of boats carrying a large gun each lay within a harbor, naturally kept the British from bringing their big ships, which needed plenty of sea-room for manœuvres, inside.
But the first encounter between gun-boats and a frigate demonstrated the inefficiency of the boats. On June 20, 1813, the British frigates Junon and Barossa, with the sloop Laurestinus, were becalmed in Hampton Roads. Seeing them helpless, Captain Tarbell, with a fleet of gun-boats, rowed out to attack them. The bay was smooth, and every condition favored the Yankee boats, but instead of having forty gun-boats to attack one frigate, as the gun-boat theory had proposed, Captain Tarbell had but fifteen. However, on arriving within long range (he did not dare try short range because grape-shot would sink a gun-boat), he anchored his fleet in the form of a crescent around the Junon. But no sooner did he come to anchor than the boats swung around with the tide, and he could not fire a gun at the frigate without shooting away his own masts; so he up anchor again, and swinging around almost broadside on to the frigate with his sweeps, began blazing away. The first shot made some of his men wish they hadn’t fired it, and the reason they wished so can be made plain even to a landsman. The boats, as told, were perhaps fifteen feet wide. The cannon each carried was a long thirty-two pounder. This gun was nine feet long, weighed five thousand pounds, and was mounted amidships, with its centre of gravity directly above the boat’s keel. In that position, even when it was swung around to fire over either rail, it did not materially interfere with the stability of the boat if the water was smooth. But the instant it was fired it had to recoil and the whole two and a half tons of iron was hurled with a tremendous thump toward the rail of the boat, and over rolled the boat under the weight and shock of the recoil until “all hands thought she was done for sure enough.”
However, although the danger was imminent, no boat did actually turn over in this fight. But the rolling that was started kept the crew busy with the sweeps for several minutes before another shot could be fired.
Feeble as was the attack, Captain Sanders, of the Junon, made a very hasty and ill-directed fire in return, and with the first breath of wind strove to sail clear of the gun-boats. But Captain Sheriff, of the Barossa, as soon as he had steerage way, stood for the gun-boats, and by a well-directed fire soon disabled one and struck another, when Captain Tarbell thought best to retreat.
The Americans lost one man killed and two wounded. No losses were reported on the British ships, and it is certain that no material damage was done to them, for the Junon was in Delaware Bay a few days later taking part in another fight with gun-boats.
The only American who at all distinguished himself in this fight was Lieutenant William Bradford Shubrick, who was in the Hornet when she sank the Peacock. He commanded the gun-boat that approached nearest to the enemy, covered the retreat of the flotilla, and towed off the disabled boat, so saving it from capture. But he had had enough of gun-boat service, and as soon as possible got himself transferred to the Constitution, where he had a chance to see fighting of some consequence.