326 Naval War of 1812 



the Wasp slightly superior in force to the Frolic, 

 as she had 25 men the most; but in reality, as the 

 battle was fought under very short sail, and decided 

 purely by gunnery, the difference in number of crew 

 was not of the least consequence. The Hornet had 

 nine men more than the Penguin, and it would be 

 absurd to say that this gave her much advantage. 

 In both the latter cases, the forces were practically 

 equal, although, numerically expressed, the odds 

 were in favor of the Americans. The exact reverse 

 is the case in the last action of the Constitution. 

 Here, the Levant and Cyane had all the men they 

 required, and threw a heavier broadside than their 

 foe. Expressed in numbers, the odds against them 

 were not great, but numbers could not express the 

 fact that carronades were opposed to long guns, and 

 two small ships to one big one. Again, though in 

 the action on Lake Champlain numbers do show a 

 slight advantage both in weight, metal, and number 

 of men on the British side, they do not make the 

 advantage as great as it really was, for they do not 

 show that the British possessed a frigate with a 

 main-deck battery of 24-pounders, which was equal 

 to the two chief vessels of the Americans, exactly 

 as the Constitution was superior to the Cyane and 

 Levant. 29 And on the same principles I think that 



29 It must always be remembered that these rules cut both 

 ways. British writers are very eloquent about the disadvan- 

 tage in which carronades placed the Cyane and Levant, but 

 do not hint that the Essex suffered from a precisely similar 

 cause, in addition to her other misfortunes; either they 



