On the Ocean 133 



to fight against their flag; and in his address to the 

 court-martial mentions, among the reasons for his 

 defeat, "that he was very much weakened by per 

 mitting the Americans on board to quit their quar 

 ters." Coupling this with the assertion made by 

 James and most other British writers that the Con 

 stitution was largely manned by Englishmen, we 

 reach the somewhat remarkable conclusion, that the 

 British ship was defeated because the Americans on 

 board would not fight against their country, and 

 that the American was victorious because the Brit 

 ish on board would. However, as I have shown, 

 in reality there were probably not a score of British 

 on board the Constitution. 



In this, as well as the two succeeding frigate ac 

 tions, every one must admit that there was a great 

 superiority in force on the side of the victors, and 

 British historians have insisted that this superiority 

 was so great as to preclude any hopes of a success 

 ful resistance. That this was not true, and that the 

 disparity between the combatants was not as great 

 as had been the case in a number of encounters in 

 which English frigates had taken French ones, can 

 be best shown by a few accounts taken from the 

 French historian Troude, who would certainly not 

 exaggerate the difference. Thus on March i, 1799, 

 the English 38-gun i8-pounder frigate Sybil, cap 

 tured the French 44-gun 24-pounder frigate Forte, 

 after an action of two hours and ten minutes. 33 In 



"Batailles Navales de la France." O. Troude (Paris, 

 1868), iv, 171. 



