be deceiving ourselves, were we to admit that the comparative expertness of the crews, in gunnery, was equally satisfactory. My object is to press home the absolute necessity of training to expert practice, master-gunners, their crews, and captains of guns; and I must support my opinion of the vast national importance of such a measure by a strong, impartial, and unreserved appeal to facts. Now, taking the difference of effect as stated by Captain Carden, we must draw this conclusion: that the comparative loss in killed and wounded, (one hundred and four to twelve,) together with the dreadful account he gives of the condition of his own ship, whilst he admits that the enemy's 'vessel was comparatively in good order,' must have arisen from inferiority in gunnery, as well as inferiority in force." * "These untoward circumstances are quite sufficient to account for the capture of the frigate, (Guerrière,) and to show, indeed, the impossibility of preventing it, notwithstanding the gallantry with which she was defended; but they are not sufficient to account for the great disparity of loss in killed and wounded, namely, seventy-eight to fourteen." With such proof as the above, of the superior training and efficacy of our frigates in the actions referred to, we may surely rest contented. They come not from the partial record of friends, or even from the impartial discrimination of neutrals, but they are the unwilling acknowledgments, uttered perhaps unreflectingly, of the enemy who suffered from this prowess, and skill so distinguished, "That very envy and the tongue of loss In accepting and recording these grateful tributes of praise extorted from enemies, we have no desire to conceal the fact that the superior discipline and condition of our infant navy was in a measure comparative and accidental, arising not more from the excellence of our ships, and the unwearied diligence of our officers, than from the negligence of the British navy and government, and the fixed contempt entertained for their new and feeble opponent.‡ Neither are we tempted to indulge in the exaggerated and vain-glorious boastings which mingled in the exultation of Naval Gunnery, 2d edition, 1829, pp. 260-261. + Ibid., pp. 272-273. Ibid., pp. 1 et seq. 1842.] Constitution, Cyane, and Levant. 197 the American journals of that period, or to imitate the illiberal and fraudulent detractions which entered into the accounts of a portion of the English writers, and have been. perpetuated by Mr. James. English seamen still maintain a pre-eminence only rivalled by their descendants on this side of the water, who inherit their natural aptitude for the sea, and possess, in an extensive commerce, the requisite school for its nurture. English naval officers are still unsurpassed, and at no period of English history has the naval genius of the empire been seen in such perfect maturity and development as at the present. But there was a time when all the enemies of Great Britain had been swept from off the ocean, and when the brilliant successes of the army had rendered that branch of the public service the pet of the nation. England, no longer regarding her wooden walls as her bulwarks, permitted her navy to fall into comparative disrepute. Constant triumphs, and a period of comparative inaction, made her officers negligent and unskilful, and at this moment she engaged our young navy, which, exaggerating like herself her naval prowess, spared no means or exertions for improvement. But these circumstances, accounting for their extreme illsuccess, do not by any means palliate the malicious comments and disingenuous attempts to disguise the truth of English writers.* Their reiterated declarations that the American ships were better built, manned, and managedt than their own, exhibit a ludicrous pertinacity. These facts have been demonstrated beyond cavil, but in a manner which, we should think, would render the repeated announcement of them not very acceptable to English ears. We ask no other and better explanation of our naval successes, than that which we have copied above from the confessions of native apologists. Could we hope to meet with any generosity from Englishmen, we might expect, with such confessions before the world, to hear less detraction of the men who fought the naval actions of the last war. The action of the Constitution with the Cyane and Le As a specimen of the fairness of British naval historians, we may state that, in "Campbell's British Admirals," vol. viii., p. 292, the Constitution is said to have mounted sixty-five guns in her action with the Guerrière. + Naval Gunnery, part v., passim. vant, allowing to Commodore Stewart, which we readily admit, all the advantage of a concentrated fire, afforded a fresh evidence of the proficiency on the one side, and the lamentable want of skill on the other, in the familiar use of the weapons of war, both in the relative numbers of killed and wounded, and the disproportionate injury sustained by the two combatants. As a display of seamanship, also, the management of the American frigate has excited much admiration among nautical men. Mr. James, in his narrative of this affair, calls the Cyane the "British twenty-two gun ship Cyane,' referring the reader in a note to another volume for the real force of this ship. He knew well that, of his readers, nine in ten would be satisfied with the statement in the text, which is in conformity with the mode he has generally adopted of introducing the notice of each action with a detail of the force of the parties. He has in this instance also omitted. the tabular summation of the number of guns, and men, and weight of metal. This device was intended to conceal the fact that the Cyane mounted thirty-fourt guns instead of twenty-two. The Levant mounted, according to Mr. James, twenty guns, which we will take as the true number, although it excludes a shifting eighteen pounder carronade on the topgallant forecastle. Of these fifty-four guns opposed to the fifty-two of the Constitution, forty were thirty-two pound carronades; and yet a British court-martial, held on board the Akbar, at Halifax, found the enemy decidedly superior. As the broadside of the Constitution was six hundred and eighty-four pounds,‡ and that of the two British ships united, seven hundred and forty-eight pounds, we imagine that we must look to some moral causes for this impression of decided superiority. We are now to speak of the capture of the Chesapeake by the British frigate Shannon, a ship which, by this achievement alone, acquired a celebrity only second to that of the victory of Nelson's flag-ship at the battle of Trafalgar. Fired at the sound of her name, and that of her gallant captain, Sir Philip Broke, the genius of Great Britain is ready to exclaim *Cooper, p. 374. + Ibid., 373. Mr. James repeatedly misstates the broadside of the Constitution to be seven hundred and sixty-eight pounds, and that of the United States eight hundred and sixty-four pounds. 1842.] The Shannon a perfect Man-of-war. 199 "Now strike the golden lyre again: A louder yet, and yet a louder strain." Even Mr. James, as intemperate in the exultation of victory as in the rage of defeat, injudiciously confesses that this event broke a spell which had hitherto oppressed the valor of British seamen. It is unnecessary here to dwell upon the circumstances which marked the contrast in the condition of the two ships; it is sufficient to mention on the one side the officers and men being in a degree unknown to each other the prestige that she was an unlucky ship (and whoever is at all acquainted with seamen will appreciate the influence of such a sentiment upon this proverbially superstitious class)—the startling fact that of her seven principal officers four were killed or mortally wounded before boarding, one in repelling boarders, and one hors de combat, on the gun deck, at the time the boarding_took place,* whilst on board the enemy's ship but two officers of any rank were wounded, the captain and the boatswain, the former after the first onset; and lastly, to the chivalric imprudence of Lawrence in waiving the advantage of a raking fire at the beginning of the action. On the other hand-that the Shannon is admitted, by British authorities, to have been the finest specimen of a man-of-war in the British navy-that from the fourteenth of September, 1806, to the first of June, 1813, nearly seven years, Captain Broke had been training his men to the use of their guns-that she is held up as the great exemplar of the English navy-that her state of discipline was pronounced perfectt-that "every quality that should characterize an accomplished officer, and a perfect man-of-war, [italics by Sir Howard,] belonged to that distinguished person, to that ship, and to her gallant crew;" and that it can only be when a captain is highly accomplished in warlike science, indefatigable in teaching it, and acting in a long course of war-practice, that the British navy will find the elements to fit out another Shannon ;" and finally, that she is so generally acknowledged and received as the standard of naval perfection, that Sir Howard Douglas, in his instructions in equipment, practice, and service of naval ordnance, and the tactics of single actions, written with the express approbation of the board of admiralty, cites Captain Broke and his ship no less than ten times, as authority and example conclusive and incontrovertible.* Neither will we dwell upon the inhumanity of firing down the hatchways upon a vanquished and unresisting enemy, by which the disparity in killed and wounded was much increased.t Captain Broke undertook a desperate enterprise, "to show the world what wonders could be effected," and, " bent to die or conquer, went on board." Suffice it to say that the Shannon was well fought, and that her leaky condition, and loss of eighty-three men killed and wounded, show that her antagonist, notwithstanding the disaffection of the crew, and the fatal loss of officers, was not idle during the engagement. Let the British enjoy the full honor of their victory unmolested, and to soothe our mortification for having only captured three frigates out of four in single action, we will turn to estimate the value which England (and her naval historian) put upon this solitary triumph. And first we shall notice the grateful influence it had upon Mr. James, whose malignity, embittered by the three previous defeats, had reached a fearful pitch. He even goes the length of praising an American officer, and styles the behavior of Captain Lawrence "gallant, truly gallant;" this probably was partly to compensate for a previous accusation of falsehood, and partly because, Captain Lawrence being dead, it was of no further use to insult him. What is equally strange, in the rapture of the moment he breaks out into poetry, forecastle rhymes to be sure, but probably the best he knew: "And as the war they did provoke, In the gallant ship the Shannon." Upon the author of these lines Mr. James confers the gift of prophecy; but forgetting, in the eagerness of his joy, the enigmatical character of prophetic annunciations, he failed to perceive that if Broke was to be the first, those who went * Pages 218, 224, 227, 234, 240, 268, 276, 277, 285, 286. + It is said, in excuse for this outrage, that the men of the Chesapeake fired from below after the ship had surrendered. This does not appear to have been the case. See Cooper, p. 164. |
