Although the facts of the movements in battle here given appear in the British histories—although it is admitted that both the Pomone and the Tenedos were beside the President before Decatur surrendered—the British historians treat the battle as a victory won by the Endymion, and print a table showing the relative forces of the two ships! And Allen, in his table, prints the number of the crew of the Endymion as three hundred and nineteen, although he says in the body of his story that her crew numbered “three hundred and nineteen men and twenty-seven boys.” The number of officers carried in addition to these is not given. And the British Government, to perpetuate the idea that the Endymion captured the President, gave her captain a gold medal and promoted her executive officer.
- Tenedos. President. Pomone.
Capture of the President by a British Squadron.
From a rare lithograph.
However, Rear-Admiral H. Hotham, in reporting her capture to Vice-Admiral Cochrane, said: “I have the honor to acquaint you with the capture of the United States ship President by the following force, viz.: the Majestic, Captain Hayes; the Tenedos, Captain Hyde Parker; the Endymion, Captain Hope; the Pomone, Captain Lumley.” Further than that, all these ships shared in the prize-money. To this may be added the words of Admiral Cochrane, at a public dinner, some years later, when some younger British officers were felicitating themselves on the victory, as they called it, of the Endymion.
“The President was completely mobbed,” he said.
But when all this is said—when it is proved by the enemy’s reports that a squadron captured the President—it is perfectly clear to an impartial mind, as Roosevelt says, that Decatur “acted rather tamely, certainly not heroically, in striking to the Pomone.”
Because the American Navy was insignificant in the number of its ships when compared with the enemy—because it always will be comparatively small in numbers—it is the duty of every American officer to fight as long as he can float and fire a gun.
Jeremiah O’Brien, with his Machias haymakers on a merchant-sloop, points his finger at Stephen Decatur with a well-disciplined crew on the man-of-war.