154 Naval War of 1812 



ever the case. Many of the midshipmen of the war 

 afterward became celebrated commanders, and most 

 of these (a notable instance being Farragut, the 

 greatest admiral since Nelson) were entirely too 

 young in 1812 to have had vessels under them, and, 

 moreover, came largely from the so-called "best 

 families." 



Again, in the first two frigate actions of 1812, 

 the proportion of killed to wounded happened to 

 be unusually large on board the American frigates ; 

 accordingly James states (p. 146) that the returns 

 of the wounded had been garbled, underestimated, 

 and made "subservient to the views of the command 

 ers and their government." To support his posi 

 tion that Capt. Hull, who reported 7 killed and 7 

 wounded, had not given the list of the latter in full, 

 he says that "an equal number of killed and wound 

 ed, as given in the American account, hardly ever 

 occurs, except in cases of explosion" ; and yet, on p. 

 519, he gives the loss of the British Hermes as 25 

 killed and 24 wounded, disregarding the incongru 

 ity involved.- On p. 169, in noticing the loss of the 

 United States, 5 killed and 7 wounded, he says that 

 "the slightly wounded, as in all other American 

 cases, are omitted." This is untrue, and the pro 

 portion on the United States, 5 to 7, is just about 

 the same as that given by James himself on the 

 Endymion, n to 14, and Nautilus, 6 to 8. In sup- 



