James Biddle.
From an engraving by Gimbrede of the portrait by Wood.
Because of the tremendous destruction wrought—because nine-tenths of the enemy’s crew had been counted among the casualties, the time required for this destruction is the most interesting fact of the battle. The first broadside was fired at 11.32 A.M. Lieutenant Biddle hauled down the enemy’s flag at 12.15. Just forty-three minutes had elapsed, and the Frolic was a wreck, with barely enough men left unhurt to navigate a sound merchantman of her size into port. And that was done while both ships were rolling and plunging about in a cross sea!
It is particularly interesting to compare the Wasp with the Frolic. The facts are that the Wasp measured 450 tons and the Frolic 467. The Wasp could fire nine guns, throwing 250 pounds of metal at a broadside, and the Frolic, ten guns throwing 274 pounds. This is the lowest British estimate of her guns. Captain Jones after looking carefully over his prize reported officially that she carried twenty-two guns, throwing 292 pounds of metal. Jones had no reason for misrepresenting the matter in his report. Captain Whinyates makes no mention of guns in his. The Wasp carried 135 men, and Allen, the British historian, says they were “fine, able-bodied seamen.” It is quite certain that they were as fine as any afloat. But to assert that they were all experienced seamen is to tell a falsehood. They were an ordinary Yankee crew.
The Frolic carried 110 men and Allen says they were “worn down by long service in a tropical climate.” No one need dispute this, even if they did fire three broadsides to the Yankee’s two. The Wasp had but five men killed and five wounded, nearly all of whom were struck while aloft. They tumbled from the tops and rigging like squirrels shot from the limbs of a tree.
To sum it up, the two ships were as nearly equal in force as any two ships meeting at sea were likely to be in those days. The British ship was somewhat the more powerful, for she had “all the men we could use,” as Captain Whinyates put it; and she carried more guns and threw more metal than the American.
The fact is this victory made such a deep impression upon the minds of the British officials that they were led to a most extraordinary proceeding in order to modify the effect it was likely to have upon the British public as a whole, and consequently upon the fortunes of the political party then in power in Parliament. The report of the fight was garbled before it was given out to the press. The account given out said that “the Wasp measured 434 tons and the Frolic 384,” so “the tonnage of the Wasp gave her an immense advantage” in the heavy sea-way. Allen, the British historian, prints the garbled reports of the battle in the work already quoted, although the official registers of ships would have given him the facts. Allen, however, but follows James in this matter.
Medal Awarded to Jacob Jones, after the Capture of the Frolic by the Wasp.