154 Naval War of 1812 



was manned by 509 men, suffered so from shot un 

 der water that she had to be pumped out every watch 

 and that two eighteen-pound shot passed in a hori 

 zontal line through her mainmast; all of which 

 statements were highly creditable to the vividness 

 of his imagination. The States measured but 1,576 

 tons (and by English measurement very much less), 

 had 478 men aboard, had not been touched by a 

 shot under water-line and her lower masts were 

 unwounded. James states that most of her crew 

 were British, which assertion I have already dis 

 cussed; and that she had but one boy aboard, and 

 that he was seventeen years old, in which case 29 

 others, some of whom (as we learn from the "Life 

 of Decatur") were only twelve, must have grown 

 with truly startling rapidity during the hour and a 

 half that the combat lasted. 



During the twenty years preceding 1812, there 

 had been almost incessant warfare on the ocean, 

 and although there had been innumerable single con 

 flicts between French and English frigates, there had 

 been but one case in which the French frigate, sin 

 gle-handed, was victorious. This was in the year 

 1805, when the Milan captured the Cleopatra. Ac 

 cording to Troude, the former threw at a broadside 

 574 pounds (actual), the latter but 334; and the 

 former lost 35 men out of her crew of 350; the lat 

 ter 58 out of 200. Or, the forces being as 100 to 58, 

 the loss inflicted was as 100 to 60; while the States' 

 force compared to the Macedonian's being as 100 to 

 66, the loss she inflicted was as 100 to n. 



