94 Naval War of 1812 



Again, the armaments of the American as well 

 as of the British ships were composed of three very 

 different styles of guns. The first, or long gun, was 



tainly not throw his wounded over alive because he feared 

 they might die. Again, in vol. vi, p. 546, he says: "Captain 

 Stewart had caused the Cyane to be painted to resemble a 

 36-gun frigate. The object of this was to aggrandize his 

 exploit in the eyes of the gaping citizens of Boston." No 

 matter how skilful an artist Captain Stewart was, and no 

 matter how great the gaping capacities of the Bostonians, 

 the Cyane (which, by the way, went to New York and not 

 Boston) could no more be painted to look like a 36-gun 

 frigate than a schooner could be painted to look like a brig. 

 Instances of rancor like these two occur constantly in his 

 work, and make it very difficult to separate what is matter 

 of fact from what is matter of opinion. I always rely on the 

 British official accounts when they can be reached, except in 

 the case of the Java, which seem garbled. That such was 

 sometimes the case with British officials is testified to by 

 both James (vol. iy, p. 17) and Brenton (vol. ii, p. 454, 

 note). From the "Memoir of Admiral Broke" we learn that 

 his public letter was wrong in a number of particulars. See 

 also any one of the numerous biographies of Lord Dundon- 

 ald, the hero of the little Speedy 's fight. It is very unfor 

 tunate that the British stopped publishing official accounts 

 of their defeats; it could not well help giving rise to unpleas 

 ant suspicions. 



It may be as well to mention here, again, that James' ac 

 cusations do not really detract from the interest attaching to 

 the war, and its value for purposes of study. If, as he says, 

 the American commanders were cowards, and their crews 

 renegades, it is well worth while to learn the lesson that 

 good training will make such men able to beat brave officers 

 with loyal crews. And why did the British have such bad 

 average crews as he makes out? He says, for instance, that 

 the Java's was unusually bad; yet Brenton says (vol. ii, p. 

 461) it was like "the generality of our crews." It is worth 

 while explaining the reason that such a crew was generally 

 better than a French and worse than an American one. 



