246 Naval War of 1812 



rather worse than the gunboats. There was no 

 longer any doubt as to the amount of reliance to 

 be placed on the latter. 38 



On June 20, 1813, a British force of three 74/3, 

 one 64, four frigates, two sloops, and three trans- 

 ports was anchored off Craney Island. On the 

 northwest side of this island was a battery of 18- 

 pounders, to take charge of which Captain Cassin, 

 commanding the naval forces at Norfolk, sent 

 ashore one hundred sailors of the Constellation, 

 under the command of Lieutenants Neale, Shu- 

 brick, and Saunders, and fifty marines under Lieu- 

 tenant Breckenridge. 39 On the morning of the 

 22d they were attacked by a division of 15 boats, 

 containing 700 men, 40 seamen, marines, chasseurs, 

 and soldiers of the iO2d regiment, the whole under 

 the command of Captain Pechell, of the San Do- 

 mingo, 74. Captain Hanchett led the attack in the 



38 Though the flotilla men did nothing in the boats, they 

 acted with the most stubborn bravery at the battle of Bla- 

 densburg. The British Lieutenant Gleig, himself a spectator, 

 thus writes of their deeds on that occasion ("Campaign at 

 Washington," p. 119): "Of the sailors, however, it would 

 be injustice not to speak in the terms which their conduct 

 merits. They were employed as gunners, and not only did 

 they serve their guns with a quickness and precision which 

 astonished their assailants, but they stood till some of them 

 were actually bayoneted with fuses in their hands; nor was 

 it till their leader was wounded and taken, and they saw 

 themselves deserted on all sides by the soldiers, that they 

 quitted the field." Certainly such men could not be accused 

 of lack of courage. Something else is needed to account for 

 the failure of the gunboat system. 



39 Letter of Captain John Cassin, June 23, 1813. 



40 James, vi, 337. 



