Concluding Operations 201 



remember that great as is the honor that Broke de 

 serves, it is no more than that due to Manners. 



The Republic of the United States owed a great 

 deal to the excellent make and armament of its 

 ships, but it owed still more to the men who were 

 in them. The massive timbers and heavy guns of 

 Old Ironsides would have availed but little had it 

 not been for her able commanders and crews. Of 

 all the excellent single-ship captains, British or 

 American, produced by the war, the palm should be 

 awarded to Hull. 89 The deed of no othej man (ex 

 cept Macdonough) equaled his escape from Broke's 

 five ships, or surpassed his half-hour's conflict with 

 the Guerriere. After him, almost all the American 

 captains deserve high praise Decatur, Jones, 

 Blakely, Biddle, Bainbridge, Lawrence, Burrows, 

 Allen, Warrington, Stewart, Porter. It is no small 

 glory to a country to have had such men upholding 

 the honor of its flag. On a par with the best of them 

 are Broke, Manners, and also Byron and Blythe. 

 It must be but a poor-spirited American whose veins 

 do not tingle with pride when he reads of the cruises 

 and fights of the sea-captains, and their grim prow 

 ess, which kept the old Yankee flag floating over 

 the waters of the Atlantic for three years, in the 

 teeth of the mightiest naval power the world has 



89 See "Naval Tactics," by Commander J. H. Ward, and 

 "Life of Commodore Tatnall," by Charles C. Jones, Jr. 



