had four lieutenants; and while the Frolic had only one midshipman, and he a boy, the Wasp had 12 or 13 midshipmen; chiefly masters and mates of merchantmen, stout able men, each of whom could take charge of a ship," &c. &c. pp. 150, 151.

This is probably the first instance on record of such a disparity in midshipmen! Mr. James gives no proofs of what he says,

The

but simply asserts. On our part, we will assert, too. Not a midshipman of the Wasp, so far as we can discover, and we knew most of them at the time, was ever the master or mate of a merchantman. Even the superior officers were far from being old seamen. Wasp had an extra lieutenant in the present Commodore Biddle, it is true, though borne on the books; and Mr. Rapp, one of her midshipmen, acted in the place of the late Commodore Claxton, who was on the sick list. Capt. Jones had been a sailor 13 years when he took the Frolic; Mr. Biddle, 12; Mr. Rodgers, 8; Mr. Booth, 6; Mr. Claxton, 6; and Mr. Rapp, 5. Thus the majority of the ward-room officers were quite young seamen, let the midshipmen have been what they might. Of the latter, there were but 6 or 8 on board, and most of them were young in years and young in service. We will now go into the arithmetic.

Captain Whinyates, of the Frolic, says, in his official letter— "At length the enemy boarded, and made himself master of the brig, every individual officer being wounded, and the greater part of the men either killed or wounded, there not being 20 persons remaining unhurt." Now as the English recaptured this brig within an hour or two after she was taken by the Americans, as the battle occurred on the 18th October, 1812, and as the letter of Captain Whinyates was written on the 23d of the same month, it is probable the latter had time and opportunity to ascertain the facts. But, in the steelyard and arithmetical war that succeeded, it was desirable to diminish this loss as much as possible, and Mr. James gives the following account of the matter, viz :—

Men. Boys. Passenger. Total. Killed. Wounded. Total K. & W. Grew of Frolic, 98 11 1 110 (p. 149.) 15 47 62 (p. 147.) To this our historian adds: "Not above 20 men remained on the Frolic's DECK unhurt, the remainder were below, attending the wounded, and performing other duties there." Here Mr. James endeavors to explain away Captain Whinyates's plain statement, of not "20 persons remaining unhurt," by confining the allusion Let us see how his account of the matter will

to those on DECK.

hold good:

Crew.

110

62

48

Killed and Wounded. Unhurt in all. Capt. Whinyates' unhurt.

Here then we have 28 men occupied below, in a sloop of war, at the most critical moment of a bloody battle! In addition, the men on a sloop of war's berth-deck are almost as much exposed in action, as those on her spar-deck. If 6 men were stationed below, in such a vessel, it was probably ample, and this would leave 22 philanthropists attending to the 48 wounded, (half of whom were found lying on the upper deck, by the way,) with the enemy coming over the brig's bows! Mr. James puts more than a fourth of the Frolic's men below, out of harm's way, in this extraordinary combat!

In point of fact, but one unwounded man was found by the Americans, on the Frolic's decks. The remainder did what men of all nations will do, under such circumstances-they ran below. The brave fellow who remained was at the wheel, and Mr. Cooper mentions his firmness with commendation. The officers were found at their posts, as became them, but the seamen took shelter, as they had a right to do, when resistance was useless. There can be no manner of doubt that Captain Whinyates meant to say that not 20 of all on board were unhurt, and he was near the truth, for the Frolic lost from 90 to 100 men; probably some where between the two.

Mr. James gives the world a specimen of private malignancy, in connexion with his account of this battle. While practising in his profession, it is understood that he had a misunderstanding with one of the Biddle family, which grew out of the fate of a horse that paid the tribute of nature under his treatment. The feelings which this affair produced manifest themselves in the Naval Occurrences! He says, "Mr. Biddle's family" (Commodore Biddle is meant) "resides in Philadelphia, within a door or two of Mr. Clark's publisher; who therefore could do no less than insert his neighbor's account of the action. But, in justice to a gallant young man, it is but fair to state, that Lieutenant Rodgers, of the Wasp, was the first American officer on board the Frolic."-p. 146. Now, in the first place, there is not the slightest evidence that Mr. Biddle, or his father, or any one of his name, had the least connexion with Mr. Clark's account, which Mr. James quotes; and then it is a matter of history, that, when some discussion took place in the journals of the day, concerning the officer first on board, Mr. Rodgers himself, under his own name, frankly admitted it was Mr. Biddle. We can say, in addition, that we had this declaration ourselves, from Mr. Rodgers's own mouth. The late George Rodgers was a brave fellow, and of an excellent heart, and he behaved well in the battle; but, to use his own words, "Mr. Biddle had the chance, and he profited by it." A pretty historian this!

We will next turn to Mr. James's statements concerning the battle of Lake Erie. These commence at p. 283, and are continued to p. 297. The documents connected with this part of the subject are to be found between p. lxxxii. and p. xcix., Appendix. At p. 284, we find the following table of the British force on the lake, in May, 1813; or, at a time when the Americans had not a single cruiser in those waters, viz :—

It is by documents like this, filled with a pretending particularity, that Mr. James endeavors to gain credit. Not a word does he say concerning his authorities, but who can dispute the veracity of a writer that knows the tonnage of the Little Belt to have been exactly 54 tons, while that of the Erie was one ton more? In order to see how writers can differ, we shall give the following comparative view of this tonnage, placing Mr. James's statement alongside of that of certain appraisers, employed by the American government to ascertain the dimensions of these very vessels, when it became necessary to value them as prizes, viz. :—

It was not to refute Mr. James by means of any appraisers, however, that we have given the foregoing table; but to refute him. by means of himself. In order to do this, a few explanations be

come necessary.

All the vessels mentioned in Mr. James's table, as having been. in service on Lake Erie in May, 1813, were in the battle of the 10th September, but the Erie. Deducting the 15 men given as the complement of this schooner, the total of the five other crews would be as follows, viz. :

According to Mr. James himself, then, the five vessels of the six he names in his table, that were in the battle, had crews of 253 men, in May; or, at a moment when the Americans had not a vessel on the lake. Luckily, Mr. James also furnishes the proofif proof of such a fact could be wanting that these crews were increased in preparation for serious service. In his Appendix, p. xcvi., he gives us an extract from the minutes of the court which sat on the surviving officers after the battle of the 10th September. In these minutes, Lieut. Stokoe, of the Queen Charlotte, says,— "We had on board (the Queen Charlotte) between 120 and 130 men, officers and altogether." The mean of 120 and 130 is 125, and we have a right to take this number as that of the crew of the vessel in question, during the battle. This is an increase which, applied to the other four vessels, will give us the following proposition, viz. :

As 110, the Charlotte's crew in May, are to 253, the complement of the five vessels; so are 125, the Charlotte's crew in September, to the answer -or 110 253 :: 125: 287,

This, too, is on the supposition that the crews of the smaller vessels were only increased in the same ratio as that of the Queen Charlotte; whereas it is scarcely possible any craft would be deliberately taken into such a fight with only 18 or 20 men. It is probable the crews of the smaller vessels were at least doubled for the occasion; but, as our object is to discredit Mr. James by means of his own book, we will let the proposition stand as it is.

It follows, then, that the five vessels mentioned in Mr. James's table, as having 253 men in May, must have had at least 287 in the battle. But there was a sixth vessel, the Detroit, much larger and heavier than the Queen Charlotte, put into the water between May and September, which was the commanding ship in the engagement, and which, out of all doubt, had a considerably stronger crew than the Queen Charlotte. She is stated to have been of about 500 tons, and her armament consisted of long guns, 24s, 18s, 12s, and 9s. If the Charlotte had 125 men in the battle, it is not at all probable that the Detroit had less than 150. Add this number to the 287 substantially shown by Mr. James's own statements to have been in the other five vessels, and we get 437 for the total of all the crews. This is known to be some 20 or 30 men short of the killed, wounded, and prisoners found in the vessels, but we are now reasoning on Mr. James's own premises. Nevertheless, directly in the face of these truths, which ought to have struck every man who set about a serious inquiry as to the VOL. X., No. XLVII.-53

facts, this writer coolly says, p. 289, in speaking of the battle, "The complements of the six British vessels consisted of 50 seamen (including officers and boys), 85 Canadians of all sorts and sizes, and 210 soldiers of the Newfoundland and 41st regiments; total 345." Now, we will make two or three propositions in order to prove the value of this statement, which, it will be remembered, is produced with the same unhesitating particularity as most of his other details; these details giving his work its exceeding value in English eyes.

By deducting this number from 345, Mr. James's total, we get the following as the result, viz. :

345
278

67 men as the complement of the Detroit!

Giving to the other vessels only the same rate of increase, in preparation for the battle, as is shown to have been given to the Charlotte, and we get the following, viz. :

345

287

58 as the complement of the Detroit!

Again assuming that the Detroit, a much heavier ship in tonnage and armament, had only the same number of men as the Charlotte, we get the following, viz. :

Once more assuming that the Detroit had her fair proportion of men which is probable, as Capt. Barclay was in her, and she was his main reliance, there being no scarcity of soldiers and Canadians certainly, to meet all his wants—and we get the following result, viz.: