On the Ocean 235 



non's had been years, such a captain as Lawrence 

 would have had his men perfectly in hand; they 

 would not have been cowed by their losses, nor 

 some of the officers too demoralized to act properly, 

 and the material advantages which the Chesapeake 

 possessed, although not very great, would probably 

 have been enough to give her a good chance of 

 victory. It is well worth noticing that the only 

 thoroughly disciplined set of men aboard (all ac 

 cording to James himself, by the way, native Ameri 

 cans), namely, the marines, did excellently, as 

 shown by the fact that three-fourths of their num 

 ber were among the killed and wounded. The 

 foreigners aboard the Chesapeake did not do as 

 well as the Americans, but it is nonsense to ascribe 

 the defeat in any way to them ; it was only rendered 

 rather more disastrous by their actions. Most of 

 the English authors give very fair accounts of the 

 battle, except that they hardly allude to the peculiar 

 disadvantages under which the Chesapeake suf 

 fered when she entered into it. Thus, James 

 thinks the Java was unprepared because she had 

 only been to sea six weeks; but does not lay any 

 weight on the fact that the Chesapeake had been 

 out only as many hours. 



Altogether the best criticism on the fight is that 

 written by M. de la Graviere. 30 "It is impossible 

 to avoid seeing in the capture of the Chesapeake 

 a new proof of the enormous power of a good or 

 ganization, when it has received the consecration 



10 "Guerres Maritimes," ii, 272. 



