In the action of the Wasp with the Frolic, I have adopted James' statement of the latter's force; Professor Soley follows Captain Jones' letter, which gives the brig three additional guns and 18 pounds more metal in broadside. My reason for following James was that his account of the Frolic's force agrees with the regular armament of her class. Captain Jones gives her two carronades on the topgallant forecastle, which must certainly be a mistake; he makes her chase-guns long 12's, but all the other British brigs carried 6's; he also gives her another gun in broadside, which he calls a 12-pounder, and Lieutenant Biddle (in a letter to his father) a 32-pound carronade. His last gun should perhaps be counted in; I excluded it because the two American officials differed in their account of it, because I did not know through what port it could be fought, and because James asserted that it was dismounted and lashed to the forecastle. The Wasp left port with 138 men; subtracting the pilot and two men who were drowned, makes 135 the number on board during the action. As the battle was fought, I doubt if the loss of the brig's main-yard had much effect on the result; had it been her object to keep on the wind, or had the loss of her after-sails enabled her antagonist to cross her stern (as in the case of the Argus and Pelican), the accident could fairly be said to have had a decided effect upon the contest. But as a short time after the fight began the vessels were running nearly free, and as the Wasp herself was greatly injured aloft at the time, and made no effort to cross her foe's stern, it is difficult to see that it made much difference. The brig's head-sails were all right, and, as she was not close-hauled, the cause of her not being kept more under command was probably purely due to the slaughter on her decks.
Professor Soley represents the combat of the States and Macedonian as a plain yardarm and yardarm action after the first forty minutes. I have followed the English authorities and make it a running fight throughout. If Professor Soley is right, the enormous disparity in loss was due mainly to the infinitely greater accuracy of the American fire; according to my diagram the chief cause was the incompetency of the Macedonian's commander. In one event the difference was mainly in the gunnery of the crews, in the other, it was mainly in the tactical skill of the captains. The question is merely as to how soon Carden, in his headlong, foolishly rash approach, was enabled to close with Decatur. I have represented the closing as taking place later than Professor Soley has done; very possibly I am wrong. Could my work now be rewritten I think I should adopt his diagram of the action of the Macedonian.
But in the action with the Java it seems to me that he is mistaken. He has here followed the British accounts; but they are contradicted by the American authorities, and besides have a very improbable look. When the Constitution came round for the second time, on the port tack, James declares the Java passed directly across her stern, almost touching, but that the British crew, overcome by astonishment or awe, did not fire a shot; and that shortly afterward the manoeuvre was repeated. When this incident is said to have occurred the Java's crew had been hard at work fighting the guns for half an hour, and they continued for an hour and a half afterward; it is impossible to believe that they would have foreborne to fire more than one gun when in such a superb position for inflicting damage. Even had the men been struck with temporary lunacy the officers alone would have fired some of the guns. Moreover, if the courses of the vessels were such as indicated on Professor Soley's diagram the Java would herself have been previously exposed to a terrible raking fire, which was not the case. So the alleged manoeuvres have, per se, a decidedly apocryphal look; and besides they are flatly contradicted by the American accounts which state distinctly that the Java remained to windward in every portion of the fight. On this same tack Professor Soley represents the Java as forereaching on the Constitution; I have reversed this. At this time the Java had been much cut up in her rigging and aloft generally, while the Constitution had set much additional sail, and in consequence the latter forged ahead and wore in the smoke unperceived. When the ships came foul Professor Soley has drawn the Constitution in a position in which she would receive a most destructive stern rake from her antagonist's whole broadside. The positions could not have been as there represented. The Java's bowsprit came foul in the Constitution's mizzen rigging and as the latter forged ahead she pulled the former gradually round till when they separated the ships were in a head and stern line. Commodore Bainbridge, as he particularly says, at once "kept away to avoid being raked," while the loss of the head-sails aboard the Java would cause the latter to come up in the wind, and the two ships would again be running parallel, with the American to leeward. I have already discussed fully the reasons for rejecting in this instance the British report of their own force and loss. This was the last defeat that the British officially reported; the admiralty were smarting with the sting of successive disasters and anxious at all costs to put the best possible face on affairs (as witness Mr. Croker's response to Lord Dundonald's speech in the House). There is every reason for believing that in this case the reports were garbled; exactly as at a later date the official correspondence preceding the terrible disasters at Cabul was tampered with before being put before the public (see McCarthy's "History of our Own Times").
It is difficult to draw a diagram of the action between the Hornet and Peacock, although it was so short, the accounts contradicting one another as to which ship was to windward and which on the "larboard tack;" and I do not know if I have correctly represented the position of the combatants at the close of the engagement. Lieutenant Conner reported the number of men aboard the Hornet fit for duty as 135; Lawrence says she had 8 absent in a prize and 7 too sick to be at quarters. This would make an original complement of 150, and tallies exactly with the number of men left on the Hornet after the action was over, as mentioned by Lawrence in his account of the total number of souls aboard. The log-book of the Hornet just before starting on her cruise, states her entire complement as 158; but 4 of these were sick and left behind. There is still a discrepancy of 4 men, but during the course of the cruise nothing would be more likely than that four men should be gotten rid of, either by sickness, desertion, or dismissal. At any rate the discrepancy is very trivial. In her last cruise, as I have elsewhere said, I have probably overestimated the number of the Hornet's crew; this seems especially likely when it is remembered that toward the close of the war our vessels left port with fewer supernumeraries aboard than earlier in the contest. If such is the case, the Hornet and Penguin were of almost exactly equal force.
My own comments upon the causes of our success, upon the various historians of the war, etc., are so similar to those of Professor Soley, that I almost feel as if I had been guilty of plagiarism; yet I never saw his writings till half an hour ago. But in commenting on the actions of 1812, I think the Professor has laid too much stress on the difference in "dash" between the combatants. The Wasp bore down with perfect confidence to engage an equal foe; and the Hornet could not tell till the Peacock opened fire that the latter was inferior in force, and moreover fought in sight of another hostile vessel. In the action with the Guerrière it was Hull and not Dacres who acted boldly, the Englishman delaying the combat and trying to keep it at long range for some time. In this fight it must be remembered that neither foe knew the exact force of the other until the close work began; then, it is true, Dacres fought most bravely. So with the Macedonian; James particularly says that she did not know the force of her foe, and was confident of victory. The Java, however, must have known that she was to engage a superior force. In neither of the first two frigate actions did the Americans have a chance to display any courage in the actual fighting, the victory was won with such ease. But in each case they entered as bravely, although by no means as rashly or foolishly, into the fight as their antagonists did. It must always be remembered that until this time it was by no means proved that 24-pounders were better guns than 18's to put on frigates; exactly as at a little later date it was vigorously contended that 42-pounders were no more effective guns for two-deckers than 32-pounders were. Till 1812 there had been no experience to justify the theory that the 24-pounder was the better gun. So that in the first five actions it cannot be said that the British showed any especial courage in beginning the fight; it was more properly to be called ignorance. After the fight was once begun they certainly acted very bravely, and, in particular, the desperate nature of the Frolic's defence has never been surpassed.
But admitting this is a very different thing from admitting that the British fought more bravely than their foes; the combatants were about on a par in this respect. The Americans, it seems to me, were always to the full as ready to engage as their antagonists were; on each side there were few over-cautious men, such as Commodore Rodgers and Sir George Collier, the opposing captains on Lake Ontario, the commander of the Bonne Citoyenne, and perhaps Commodore Decatur, but as a rule either side jumped at the chance of a fight. The difference in tactics was one of skill and common sense, not one of timidity. The United States did not "avoid close action" from over-caution, but simply to take advantage of her opponent's rashness. Hull's approach was as bold as it was skilful; had the opponent to leeward been the Endymion, instead of the Guerrière, her 24-pounders would not have saved her from the fate that overtook the latter. Throughout the war I think that the Americans were as bold in beginning action, and as stubborn in continuing it, as were their foes—although no more so. Neither side can claim any superiority on the average, though each can in individual cases, as regards courage. Foolhardiness does not imply bravery. A prize-fighter who refused to use his guard would be looked upon as exceptionally brainless, not as exceptionally brave; yet such a case is almost exactly parallel to that of the captain of the Macedonian.
Appendix D
In the "Historical Register of the United States" (Edited by T. H. Palmer, Philadelphia, 1814), vol. 1 p. 105 (State Papers), is a letter from Lieut. L. H. Babbitt to Master-commandant Wm. U. Crane, both of the Nautilus, dated Sept. 13, 1812, in which he says that of the six men imprisoned by the British on suspicion of being of English birth, four were native-born Americans, and two naturalized citizens. He also gives a list of six men who deserted, and entered on the Shannon, of whom two were American born—the birthplaces of the four others not being given. Adding these last, we still have but six men as the number of British aboard the Nautilus, It is thus seen that the crack frigate Shannon had American deserters aboard her—although these probably formed a merely trifling faction of her crew, as did the British deserters aboard the crack frigate Constitution.
On p. 108, is a letter of Dec. 17, 1812, from Geo. S. Wise, purser of the Wasp, stating that twelve of that ship's crew had been detained "under the pretence of their being British subjects"; so that nine per cent. of her crew may have been British—or the proportion may have been very much smaller.
On p. 117, is a letter of Jan. 14, 1813, from Commodore J. Rodgers, in which he states that he encloses the muster-rolls of H. B. M. ships, Moselle and Sappho, taken out of the captured packet Swallow; and that these muster-rolls show that in August 1812, one eighth of the crews of the Moselle and Sappho, was composed of Americans.