Concluding Operations 197 



numbering at the outset a thousand cruisers, had 

 accomplished less than the American, which num 

 bered but a dozen. Moreover, most of the loss suf 

 fered by the former was in single fight, while this 

 had been but twice the case with the Americans, 

 who had generally been overwhelmed by numbers. 

 The President and Essex were both captured by 

 more than double their force simply because they 

 were disabled before the fight began, otherwise they 



of the Adams, which had been served in precisely the same 

 way. He omits all reference to the British i4-gun schooner 

 burnt on Ontario, and to all 3 and 4-gun sloops and schooners 

 captured there, although including the corresponding Ameri 

 can vessels. The reason that he so much underestimates the 

 tonnage, especially on the lakes, I have elsewhere discussed. 

 His tables of the relative loss in men are even more erroneous, 

 exaggerating that of the American, and greatly underestimat 

 ing that of the British ; but I have not tabulated this on ac 

 count of the impossibility of getting fair estimates of the 

 killed and wounded in the cutting-out expeditions, and the 

 difficulty of enumerating the prisoners taken in descents, 

 etc. Roughly about 2,700 Americans and 3,800 British were 

 captured; the comparative loss in killed and wounded stood 

 much more in our favor. 



I have excluded from the British loss the brigs Detroit and 

 Caledonia, and schooner Nancy (aggregating 10 guns and 

 about 500 tons), destroyed on the upper lakes, because I 

 hardly know whether they could be considered national ves 

 sels; the schooner Highflyer, of 8 guns, 40 men, and 209 

 tons, taken by Rodgers, because she seems to have been 

 merely a tender; and the Dominica, 15, of 77 men, and 270 

 tons, because her captor, the privateer Decatur, though 

 nominally an American, was really a French vessel. Of 

 course both tables are only approximately exact ; but at any 

 rate the balance of damage and loss was over 4 to 3 in our favor. 



