Complete Works. Henry Cabot Lodge
on the former's engaged side, 80 five sheets of copper beneath the bends. The Guerrière, moreover, was out-manoeuvred; "in wearing several times and exchanging broadsides in such rapid and continual changes of position, her fire was much more harmless than it would have been if she had kept more steady." 81 The Constitution was handled faultlessly; Captain Hull displayed the coolness and skill of a veteran in the way in which he managed, first to avoid being raked, and then to improve the advantage which the precision and rapidity of his fire had gained. "After making every allowance claimed by the enemy, the character of this victory is not essentially altered. Its peculiarities were a fine display of seamanship in the approach, extraordinary efficiency in the attack, and great readiness in repairing damages; all of which denote cool and capable officers, with an expert and trained crew; in a word, a disciplined man-of-war." 82 The disparity of force, 10 to 7, is not enough to account for the disparity of execution, 10 to 2. Of course, something must be allowed for the decayed state of the Englishman's masts, although I really do not think it had any influence on the battle, for he was beaten when the main mast fell; and it must be remembered, on the other hand, that the American crew was absolutely new, while the Guerrière was manned by old hands. So that, while admitting and admiring the gallantry, and, on the whole, the seamanship of Captain Dacres and his crew, and acknowledging that he fought at a great disadvantage, especially in being short-handed, yet all must acknowledge that the combat showed a marked superiority, particularly in gunnery, on the part of the Americans. Had the ships not come foul, Captain Hull would probably not have lost more than three or four men; as it was, he suffered but slightly. That the Guerrière was not so weak as she was represented to be can be gathered from the fact that she mounted two more main-deck guns than the rest of her class; thus carrying on her main-deck 30 long 18-pounders in battery, to oppose to the 30 long 24's, or rather (allowing for the short weight of shot) long 22's, of the Constitution. Characteristically enough, James, though he carefully reckons in the long bow-chasers in the bridle-ports of the Argus and Enterprise, yet refuses to count the two long eighteens mounted through the bridle-ports on the Guerrière's main-deck. Now, as it turned out, these two bow guns were used very effectively, when the ships got foul, and caused more damage and loss than all of the other main-deck guns put together.
Captain Dacres, very much to his credit, allowed the ten Americans on board to go below, so as not to fight against their flag; and in his address to the court-martial mentions, among the reasons for his defeat, "that he was very much weakened by permitting the Americans on board to quit their quarters." Coupling this with the assertion made by James and most other British writers that the Constitution was largely manned by Englishmen, we reach the somewhat remarkable conclusion, that the British ship was defeated because the Americans on board would not fight against their country, and that the American was victorious because the British on board would. However, as I have shown, in reality there were probably not a score of British on board the Constitution.
In this, as well as the two succeeding frigate actions, every one must admit that there was a great superiority in force on the side of the victors, and British historians have insisted that this superiority was so great as to preclude any hopes of a successful resistance. That this was not true, and that the disparity between the combatants was not as great as had been the case in a number of encounters in which English frigates had taken French ones, can be best shown by a few accounts taken from the French historian Troude, who would certainly not exaggerate the difference. Thus on March 1, 1799, the English 38-gun 18-pounder frigate Sybille, captured the French 44-gun 24-pounder frigate Forte, after an action of two hours and ten minutes. 83 In actual weight the shot thrown by one of the main-deck guns of the defeated Forte was over six pounds heavier than the shot thrown by one of the main-deck guns of the victorious Constitution or United States. 84
There are later examples than this. But a very few years before the declaration of war by the United States, and in the same struggle that was then still raging, there had been at least two victories gained by English frigates over French foes as superior to themselves as the American 44's were to the British ships they captured. On Aug. 10, 1805, the Phoenix, 36, captured the Didon, 40, after 3 1/2 hours' fighting, the comparative broadside force being: 85
| PHOENIX | DIDON |
| 13×18 | 14×18 |
| 2× 9 | 2× 8 |
| 6×32 | 7×36 |
| ————————- | ————————- |
| 21 guns, 444 lbs. | 23 guns, 522 lbs. |
| (nominal; about 600, real) |
On March 8, 1808, the San Florenzo, 36, captured the Piedmontaise, 40, the force being exactly what it was in the case of the Phoenix and Didon. 86 Comparing the real, not the nominal weight of metal, we find that the Didon and Piedmontaise were proportionately of greater force compared to the Phoenix and San Florenzo, than the Constitution was compared to the Guerrière or Java. The French 18's threw each a shot weighing but about two pounds less than that thrown by an American 24 of 1812, while their 36-pound carronades each threw a shot over 10 pounds heavier than that thrown by one of the Constitution's spar-deck 32's.
That a 24-pounder can not always whip an 18-pounder frigate is shown by the action of the British frigate Eurotas with the French frigate Chlorinde, on Feb. 25, 1814. 87 The first with a crew of 329 men threw 625 pounds of shot at a broadside, the latter carrying 344 men and throwing 463 pounds; yet the result was indecisive. The French lost 90 and the British 60 men. The action showed that heavy metal was not of much use unless used well.
To appreciate rightly the exultation Hull's victory caused in the United States, and the intense annoyance it created in England, it must be remembered that during the past twenty years the Island Power had been at war with almost every state in Europe, at one time or another, and in the course of about two hundred single conflicts between ships of approximately equal force (that is, where the difference was less than one half), waged against French, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Algerine, Russian, Danish, and Dutch antagonists, her ships had been beaten and captured in but five instances. Then war broke out with America, and in eight months five single-ship actions occurred, in every one of which the British vessel was captured. Even had the victories been due solely to superior force this would have been no mean triumph for the United States.
On October 13, 1812, the American 18-gun ship-sloop Wasp, Captain Jacob Jones, with 137 men aboard, sailed from the Delaware and ran off southeast to get into the track of the West India vessels; on the 16th a heavy gale began to blow, causing the loss of the jib-boom and two men who were on it. The next day the weather moderated somewhat, and at 11.30 P.M., in latitude 37° N., longitude 65° W., several sail were descried. 88 These were part of a convoy of 14 merchant-men which had quitted the bay of Honduras on September 12th, bound for England, 89 under the convoy of the British 18-gun brig-sloop Frolic, of 19 guns and 110 men, Captain Thomas Whinyates. They had been dispersed by the gale of the 16th, during which the Frolic's main-yard was carried away and both her top-sails torn to pieces 90; next day she spent in repairing damages, and by dark six of the missing ships had joined her. The day broke almost cloudless on the 18th (Sunday), showing the convoy, ahead and to leeward of the American ship, still some distance off, as Captain Jones had not thought it prudent to close during the night, while he was ignorant of the force of his antagonists. The Wasp now sent down to her top-gallant yards, close reefed her top-sails, and bore down under short fighting canvas; while the Frolic removed her main-yard from the casks, lashed it on deck, and then hauled to the wind under her boom main-sail and close-reefed foretop-sail, hoisting Spanish colors to decoy the stranger under her guns, and permit the convoy to escape. At 11.32 the action began—the two ships running parallel on the starboard tack, not 60 yards apart, the Wasp, firing her port, and the Frolic her starboard, guns. The latter fired