On the Ocean 169 



material results, sufficed to break the charm which 

 protected the standard of St. George, and taught 

 Europe what she could have already learned from 

 some of our combats, if the louder noise of our de 

 feats had not drowned the glory, that the only in- 

 vincibles on the sea are good seamen and good ar 

 tillerists. 



"The English covered the ocean with their crui 

 sers when this unknown navy, composed of six frig 

 ates and a few small craft hitherto hardly numbered, 

 dared to establish its cruisers at the mouth of the 

 Channel, in the very centre of the British power. 

 But already the Constitution had captured the Guer- 

 riere and Java, the United States had made a prize 

 of the Macedonian, the Wasp of the Frolic, and the 

 Hornet of the Peacock. The honor of the new 

 flag was established. England, humiliated, tried to 

 attribute her multiplied reverses to the unusual size 

 of the vessels which Congress had had constructed 

 in 1799, and which did the fighting in 1812. She 

 wished to refuse them the name of frigates, and 

 called them, not without some appearance of reason, 

 disguised line-of-battle ships. Since then all mari 

 time powers have copied these gigantic models, as 

 the result of the war of 1812 obliged England her 

 self to change her naval material; but if they had 

 employed, instead of frigates, cut-down 74*5 (vais- 

 seaux rases), it would still be difficult to explain 

 the prodigious success of the Americans. . . . 



"In an engagement which terminated in less than 

 half an hour, the English frigate Guerriere, com- 



VOL. IX. 8 



