292 Naval War of 1812 



says that his father considered James' account of 

 the Java's fight accurate; if he wishes such testi- 

 mony, I can produce many relatives of the Perrys, 

 Porters, and Rodgerses of 1812 who insist that I 

 have done much less than justice to the American 

 side. He says I passed over silently James' sched- 

 ule of dimensions of the frigates and sloops. This 

 is a mistake ; I showed by the testimony of Captains 

 Biddle and Warrington and Lieutenant Hoffman 

 that his comparative measurements (the absolute 

 measurements being of no consequence) for the 

 American and British sloops are all wrong; and 

 the same holds true of the frigates. 



Mr. Powell deals with the weight of shot exactly 

 as he does with the tonnage that is, he seeks to 

 show what the absolute weight of the British shot 

 was ; but he does not touch upon the point at issue, 

 the comparative weight of the British and American 

 shot. 



When he comes to the lake actions, Mr. Powell 

 is driven to conclude that what I aver must be ac- 

 curate, because he thinks the Confiance was the size 

 of the General Pike (instead of half as large again; 

 she mounted 30 guns in battery on her main deck, 

 as against the Pike's 26, and stood to the latter as 

 the Constellation did to the Essex} , and because an 

 American writer (very properly) expresses dissat- 

 isfaction with Commodore Chauncy! What Mr. 



