Naval War of 1812 61 



intelligently and less from routine, and while per 

 fectly obedient and amenable to discipline, was yet 

 able to judge for himself in an emergency. He 

 was more easily managed than most of his kind- 

 being shrewd, quiet, and, in fact, comparatively 

 speaking, rather moral than otherwise ; if he was a 

 New Englander, when he retired from a sea life he 

 was not unapt to end his days as a deacon. Alto 

 gether there could not have been better material for 

 a fighting crew than cool, gritty American Jack. 

 Moreover, there was a good nucleus of veterans to 

 begin w r ith, who were well fitted to fill the more 

 responsible positions, such as captains of guns, etc. 

 These were men who had cruised in the little Enter 

 prise after French privateers, who had been in the 

 Constellation in her two victorious fights, or who, 

 perhaps, had followed Decatur when with only 

 eighty men he cut out the Philadelphia, manned by 

 fivefold his force and surrounded by hostile bat 

 teries and war vessels, one of the boldest expe 

 ditions of the kind on record. 



It is to be noted, furthermore, in this connection, 

 that by a singular turn of fortune, Great Britain, 

 whose system of impressing American sailors had 

 been one of the chief causes of the war, herself be 

 came, in consequence of that very system, in some 

 sort a nursery for the seamen of the young Repub 

 lican navy. The American sailor feared nothing- 

 more than being impressed on a British ship dread 

 ing beyond measure the hard life and cruel discipline 

 aboard of her; but once there, he usually did well 



