Concluding Operations 153 



have undergone the same fate as the Endymion. 

 At least it was well worth trying, and though De- 

 catur could not be said to be disgraced, yet it is 

 excusable to wish that Porter or Perry had been 

 in his place. It is not very pleasant to criticise the 

 actions of an American whose name is better known 

 than that of almost any other single-ship captain of 

 his time; but if a man is as much to be praised for 

 doing fairly, or even badly, as for doing excellently, 

 then there is no use in bestowing praise at all. 



This is perhaps as good a place as any other to 

 notice one or two of James's most common misstate- 

 ments ; they really would not need refutation were it 

 not that they had been re-echoed, as usual, by al 

 most every British historian of the war for the last 

 60 years. In the first place, James puts the number 

 of the President's men at 475 ; she had 450. An 

 exactly parallel reduction must often be made when 

 he speaks of the force of an American ship. Then 

 he says there were many British among them, which 

 is denied under oath by the American officers; this 

 holds good also for the other American frigates. 

 He says there were but 4 boys ; there were nearly 30; 

 and on p. 120 he says the youngest was 14, whereas 

 we incidentally learn from the "Life of Decatur" 

 that several were under 12. A favorite accusation 

 is that the American midshipmen were chiefly mas 

 ters and mates of merchantmen ; but this was hardly 



