The Battle of New Orleans 293 



Powell thinks this last statement tends to prove 

 would be difficult to say. In the body of my work 

 I go into the minute details of the strength of the 

 combatants in the lake action; I clearly show that 

 James was guilty of gross and wilful falsification 

 of the truth ; and no material statement I make can 

 be successfully controverted. 



So much for Mr. Powell. But a much higher 

 authority, Mr. Frank Chiswell, has recently pub- 

 lished some articles which tend to show that my con- 

 clusions as to the tonnage of the sea vessels (not as 

 to the lake vessels, which are taken from different 

 sources) are open to question. In the appendix to 

 my first edition I myself showed that it was quite 

 impossible to reconcile all the different statements; 

 that the most that could be done was to take one 

 method and apply it all through, admitting that even 

 in this way it would be impossible to make all the 

 cases square with one another. 



Mr. Chiswell states that "the American tonnage 

 measurements, properly taken, never could give re- 

 sults for frigates varying largely from the English 

 tonnage." But a statement like this is idle; for the 

 answer to the "never could" is that they did. If 

 Mr. Chiswell will turn to James' "Naval Occur- 

 rences," he will find the Chesapeake set down as 

 1,135 tons, and the Macedonian as of 1,081; but 

 in the American Navy lists, which are those I fol- 



