62 Naval War of 1812 



enough, and in course of time often rose to be of 

 some little consequence. For years before 1812, 

 the number of these impressed sailors was in reality 

 greater than the entire number serving in the Ameri 

 can navy, from which it will readily be seen that 

 they formed a good stock to draw upon. Very 

 much to their credit, they never lost their devotion 

 to the home of their birth, more than two thousand 

 of them being imprisoned at the beginning of the 

 war because they refused to serve against their 

 country. When Commodore Decatur captured the 

 Macedonian, that officer, as we learn from Mar 

 shall's "Naval Biography" (II, 1019), stated that 

 most of the seamen of his own frigate, the United 

 States, had served in British war vessels, and that 

 some had been with Lord Nelson in the Victory, 

 and had even been bargemen to the great Admiral, 

 a pretty sure proof that the American sailors did 

 not show at" a disadvantage when compared with 

 others. 3 



3 With perfect gravity, James and his followers assume 

 Decatur's statement to be equivalent to saying that he had 

 chiefly British seamen on board ; whereas even as quoted by 

 Marshall, Decatur merely said that "his seamen had served 

 on board a British man-of-war," and that some "had served 

 under Lord Nelson." Like the Constitution, the United 

 States had rid herself of most of the British subjects on 

 board, before sailing. Decatur's remark simply referred to 

 the number of his American seamen who had been impressed 

 on board British ships. Whenever James says that an 

 American ship had a large proportion of British sailors 

 aboard, the explanation is that a large number of the crew 

 were Americans who had been impressed on British ships. 

 It would be no more absurd to claim Trafalgar as an Ameri- 



