LITMIR.BIZ

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the tonnage was in round numbers as follows: Detroit, 490 tons; Queen Charlotte, 400; Lady Prevost, 230; Hunter, 180; Little Belt, 90; Chippeway, 70. James makes them measure respectively 305, 280, 120, 74, 54, and 32 tons, but carefully gives the American ships the regular sea tonnage. So also he habitually deducts about 25 percent, from the real number of men on board the British ships; as regards Lake Erie he contradicts himself so much that he does not need to be exposed from outside sources. But the most glaring and least excusable misstatements are made as to the battle of Lake Champlain, where he gives the American as greatly exceeding the British force. He reaches this conclusion by the most marvellous series of garblings and misstatements. First, he says that the Confiance and the Saratoga were of nearly equal tonnage. The Confiance being captured was placed on our naval lists, where for years she ranked as a 36-gun frigate, while the Saratoga ranked among the 24-gun corvettes; and by actual measurement the former was half as large again as the latter. He gives the Confiance but 270 men; one of her officers, in a letter published in the London Naval Chronicle, 143 gives her over 300; more than that number of dead and prisoners were taken out of her. He misstates the calibre of her guns, and counts out two of them because they were used through the bow-ports; whereas, from the method in which she made her attack, these would have been peculiarly effective. The guns are given accurately by Cooper, on the authority of an officer 144 who was on board the Confiance within 15 minutes after the Linnet struck, and who was in charge of her for two months.

      Then James states that there were but 10 British gallies, while Sir George Prevost's official account, as well as all the American authorities, state the number to be 12. He says that the Finch grounded opposite an American battery before the engagement began, while in reality it was an hour afterward, and because she had been disabled by the shot of the American fleet. The gallies were largely manned by Canadians, and James, anxious to put the blame on these rather than the British, says that they acted in the most cowardly way, whereas in reality they caused the Americans more trouble than Downie's smaller sailing vessels did. His account of the armament of these vessels differs widely from the official reports. He gives the Linnet and Chubb a smaller number of men than the number of prisoners that were actually taken out of them, not including the dead. Even misstating Downie's force in guns, underestimating the number of his men, and leaving out two of his gun-boats, did not content James; and to make the figures show a proper disproportion, he says (vol. vi, p. 504) that he shall exclude the Finch from the estimate, because she grounded, and half of the gun-boats, because he does not think they acted bravely. Even were these assertions true, it would be quite as logical for an American writer to put the Chesapeake's crew down as only 200, and say he should exclude the other men from the estimate because they flinched; and to exclude all the guns that were disabled by shot, would be no worse than to exclude the Finch. James' manipulation of the figures is a really curious piece of audacity. Naturally, subsequent British historians have followed him without inquiry. James' account of this battle, alone, amply justifies our rejecting his narrative entirely, as far as affairs on the lakes go, whenever it conflicts with any other statement, British or American. Even when it does not conflict, it must be followed with extreme caution, for whenever he goes into figures the only thing certain about them is that they are wrong. He gives no details at all of most of the general actions. Of these, however, we already possess excellent accounts, the best being those in the "Manual of Naval Tactics," by Commander J. H. Ward, U. S. N. (1859), and in Lossing's "Field-Book of the War of 1812," and Cooper's "Naval History." The chief difficulty occurs in connection with matters on Lake Ontario, 145 where I have been obliged to have recourse to a perfect patchwork of authors and even newspapers, for the details, using Niles' Register and James as mutual correctives. The armaments and equipments being so irregular I have not, as in other cases, made any allowance for the short weight of the Americans shot, as here the British may have suffered under a similar disadvantage; and it may be as well to keep in mind that on these inland waters the seamen of the two navies seem to have been as evenly matched in courage and skill as was possible. They were of exactly the same stock, with the sole exception that among and under, but entirely distinct from, the Canadian-English, fought the descendants of the conquered Canadian-French; and even these had been trained by Englishmen, were led by English captains, fought on ships built by English gold, and with English weapons and discipline.

      ON LAKE ONTARIO.

      There being, as already explained, three independent centres of inland naval operations, the events at each will be considered separately.

      At the opening of the war Lieutenant Woolsey, with the Oneida, was stationed at Sackett's Harbor, which was protected at the entrance by a small fort with a battery composed of one long 32. The Canadian squadron of six ships, mounting nearly 80 guns, was of course too strong to be meddled with. Indeed, had the Royal George, 22, the largest vessel, been commanded by a regular British sea-officer, she would have been perfectly competent to take both the Oneida and Sackett's Harbor; but before the Canadian commodore, Earle, made up his mind to attack, Lieut. Woolsey had time to make one or two short cruises, doing some damage among the merchant vessels of the enemy.

      On the 19th of July Earle's ships appeared off the Harbor; the Oneida was such a dull sailor that it was useless for her to try to escape, so she was hauled up under a bank where she raked the entrance, and her off guns landed and mounted on the shore, while Lieut. Woolsey took charge of the "battery," or long 32, in the fort. The latter was the only gun that was of much use, for after a desultory cannonade of about an hour, Earle withdrew, having suffered very little damage, inflicted none at all, and proved himself and his subordinates to be grossly incompetent.

      Acting under orders, Lieut. Woolsey now set about procuring merchant schooners to be fitted and used as gun-vessels until more regular cruisers could be built. A captured British schooner was christened the Julia, armed with a long 32 and two 6's, manned with 30 men, under Lieut. Henry Wells, and sent down to Ogdensburg. "On her way thither she encountered and actually beat off, without losing a man, the Moira, of 14, and Gloucester, of 10 guns." 146 Five other schooners were also purchased; the Hamilton, of 10 guns, being the largest, while the other four, the Governor Tompkins, Growler, Conquest, and Pert had but 11 pieces between them. Nothing is more difficult than to exactly describe the armaments of the smaller lake vessels. The American schooners were mere makeshifts, and their guns were frequently changed, 147 as soon as they could be dispensed with they were laid up, or sold, and forgotten.

      It was even worse with the British, who manifested the most indefatigable industry in intermittently changing the armament, rig, and name of almost every vessel, and, the records being very loosely kept, it is hard to find what was the force at any one time. A vessel which in one conflict was armed with long 18's, in the next would have replaced some of them with 68-pound carronades; or, beginning life as a ship, she would do most of her work as a schooner, and be captured as a brig, changing her name even oftener than any thing else.

      On the first of September Commodore Isaac Chauncy was appointed commander of the forces on the lakes (except of those on Lake Champlain), and he at once bent his energies to preparing an effective flotilla. A large party of ship-carpenters were immediately despatched to the Harbor; and they were soon followed by about a hundred officers and seamen, with guns, stores, etc. The keel of a ship to mount 24 32-pound carronades, and to be called the Madison, was laid down, and she was launched on the 26th of November, just when navigation had closed on account of the ice. Late in the autumn, four more schooners were purchased, and named the Ontario, Scourge, Fair American, and Asp, but these were hardly used until the following spring. The cruising force of the Americans was composed solely of the Oneida and the six schooners first mentioned. The British squadron was of nearly double this strength, and had it been officered and trained as it was during the ensuing summer, the Americans could not have stirred out of port. But as it was, it merely served as a kind of water militia, the very sailors, who subsequently did well, being then almost useless, and unable to oppose their well-disciplined foes, though the latter were so inferior in number and force. For the reason that it was thus practically a contest of regulars against militia, I shall not give numerical comparisons of the skirmishes in the autumn of 1812, and shall touch on them but slightly. They teach the

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