310 



Naval War of 1812 



BARCLAY'S SQUADRON. 



Name. Rig. 

 Detroit, ship 



Broadside 



490 



Queeit Charlotte, " 400 



Lady Prcvost, schooner 230 



ffunttr, 



180 



schooner 70 

 Little Belt, sloop 90 



6 vessels, 



1,460 440 459 Ibs. 



These six vessels thus threw at a broadside 459 

 Ibs., of which 195 were from long guns. 



The superiority of the Americans in long-gun 

 metal was therefore nearly as three is to two, and 

 in corronade metal greater than two to one. The 

 chief fault to be found in the various American ac- 

 counts is that they sedulously conceal the compara- 

 tive weight of metal, while carefully specifying the 

 number of guns. Thus, Lossing says : "Barclay had 

 35 long guns to Perry's 15, and possessed greatly 

 the advantage in action at a distance"; which he 

 certainly did not. The tonnage of the fleets is not 

 so very important; the above tables are probably 

 pretty nearly right. It is, I suppose, impossible to 

 tell exactly the number of men in the two crews. 

 Barclay almost certainly had more than the 440 

 men I have given him, but in all likelihood some 

 of them were unfit for duty, and the number of his 



