ent result. Whether this is to put himself in spirits for his herculean task, or merely to put John Bull in a good humour, we are unable to say. But we cannot forbear giving an opinion that it is ill-judged-he ought to have saved it for a Bonne-bouche, at the last, and then his guests might possibly have risen from this feast of Polonius, with more satisfaction. Although, by the aid of a carpenter's rule to measure-together with a reasonable assumption of British ingenuity, we could very easily account for the capture of this vessel, and prove how it ought and should have happened; yet, to make short work of it, we will give the British officer the Chesapeake and let him make the most of her. She was always considered an unfortunate ship, and every one knows the influence of such an impression on the mind of a sailor. But we admit that the Chesapeake was taken by an equal enemy, and further that this exploit requires no further embellishment. It certainly has been already sufficiently embellished, by the painters and journalists, heretofore denounced by the British officer; the gentlemen of Suffolk have presented captain Broke with a piece of plate, and compared him to lord Wellington-and his royal master has embellished his merit with the order of knighthood-assuredly then this exploit requires no further embellishment, and if it did we might find it in captain Broke's official letter, wherein he assures Mr. Croker that " both ships came out of the action as if they had only been firing salutes." We never heard of such pleasant salutes as these-they killed and wounded eighty-four men of the Shannon, and came very near sending that vessel in search of the Guerriere and Java. However, we give them the credit of this affair, as well as that of the Argus, although in the former, the British had five, and in the latter three more guns; and having so done, we require of them equal candour in their own acknowledgments. It is really paltry to deny what all the world knows, and we question whether the reputation of England has suffered as much even by her defeats, as by her disingenuous and shuffling attempts to deny them.

For ourselves, we freely admit their claim to the honour of capturing the Chesapeake, and the admission is no small proof of our magnanimity, because it is conceding an honour such as they have not been much accustomed to boast of in their contest with the people of the United States. It is this single solitary instance which is assumed by the British officer as the groundwork, the proof of a claim to superiority which cannot be disputed, although we have sixteen or eighteen proofs to oppose to this modern miracle.

Before the " British officer"-the unfortunate British officer, we might say-begins his examination of his special cases, he attempts to establish certain general facts, which we will also admit without hesitation. He insists upon it that our ships are better ships-that they are better manned-and that their guns are better managed than those of the British. We agree perfectly with him in all these positions, and here we might leave the controversy to rest. What is it that constitutes the superiority which we claim, but these things-and on what other basis can a superiority on the ocean be founded? We have better ships, better men-and we fire better. Really if we were Englishmen, we should not thank the admiralty for such a defence-and were we British naval officers, we should feel excessively mortified at the service to which we belonged being thus stripped of its laurels in this insiduous manner to give them to our adversary.

But it seems that the British naval officers never before discovered this superiority in our ships, and men, and guns, and gunnery. Both in the ports of the United States, and in the Mediterranean, during our war with Tripoli, they had va rious opportunities to become acquainted with the force and armament of our ships. Several of our frigates were at Gibraltar while sir James Saumarez' fleet lay in the bay. Frequent visits were exchanged between our officers and his, and the latter had ample time and opportunity to form a correct estimate of our men and ships. It was the same when the squadron of admiral Keith lay there. Our frigates were

at Malta when the expedition came from Egypt, and also when the British fleet arrived from the Dardanelles: so also when lord Nelson assumed the command of the fleet that afterwards gained the battle of Trafalgar, as well as when a Russian and English combined fleet came to Syracuse from the Levant, destined to act against Naples, we met them daily. In short, in every part of the Mediterranean vessels of either nation fell in with each other singly, and in squadrons, and prompted either by courtesy or curiosity, the officers almost invariably exchanged visits. On these occasions they were led through every part of the ship, and permitted, nay invited, to examine every thing, for it was a matter of pride to show the high order in which the vessels of the United States were kept.

Yet, with this intimate and perfect knowledge of our ships and our men, the British officers always gave the preference to their own, and their opinions gave rise to various excellent jokes that were uttered in and out of the British parliament at the commencement of the war; but which gradually died away, and are now only remembered by those at whose expense they first came abroad. Shortly before the war, the Constitution, under captain Hull, was in an English port, as was also the Essex, captain Smith: both were thronged with British naval officers during their stay; and we well remember that on her. departure, she was called by these gentlemen-and the phrase went the rounds of the newspapers with great applause-" a bunch of boards"-" a fir built ship with a bit of striped bunting at her mast-head!" No doubt captain Hull remembered these pleasant jokes, in good time, and poor captain Dacres paid the piper for other peoples' dancing.

Thus the matter stood when the war began, and it was discovered in a little time by these same sagacious officers, that this same "bunch of pine boards" was unaccountably metamorphosed into a seventy-four in disguise! What excellent judges of ships of war must these officers of the royal navy be, who always preferred their frigates to ours, and nicknamed honest Old Ironsides "a bunch of pine boards!" We

hardly know which most to admire, the pertinacity with which they at first denied the equality of our ships, or the obstinacy with which they now insist upon their superiority. Your new converts, however, are very apt to go beyond the mark, and so it has fared with John Bull, who has passed from a most exalted contempt, to a most degrading admiration of our prowess, which he demonstrates every day by abusing us manfully, calling us "bastards," and devising very ingenious excuses, for what every body but himself knows is the consequence of his own want of skill and courage, and his senseless presumption of a superiority, which, if he ever possessed, he has lost forever.

It was not until the capture of the Guerriere, by "a bunch of pine boards,"-(poor John!)-that the British naval officers discovered, to their great astonishment, no doubt, that the American forty-four-gun frigates were "in length equal to our first class of seventy-fours, and built with similar scantling; having their sides, both above and below, at least a fourth thicker than our heaviest frigates:"-so says "the British officer on the American station." Ye gods-what a metamorphosis of "a bunch of pine boards!" Ovid de Tristibus is nothing to John Bull de Tristibus: but fear is a great magnifier as well as multiplier, and doubtless some of these valiant officers, like Jack Falstaff, multiplied "scantling," and "length,” and "guns," as that valiant knight did his "men in buckram." There is little doubt that Shakspeare intended this fat knight for the representative of John Bull, and it must be confessed that, with the exception of his wit, there is a striking resemblance.

Captain Dacres had seen American frigates a hundred times, yet this superiority in size and scantling, it seems, never struck him until the Constitution gave him such a terrible drubbing; then, forsooth, for the first time, his perception was quickened, as they quicken that of the little boys at school-by the application of the birch. Before that, this gallant commander sported the name of his ship on his top-sails in defiance of the

"bunches of pine boards." In the heyday of imaginary superiority, he endorsed a formal challenge on the register of a merchant vessel. Nay, when he saw the Constitution running down to him, he said to his men-"there is a Yankee frigate: in forty-five minutes she is certainly ours:-take her in fifteen and I promise you four months pay." It is also credibly reported that he had prepared a hogshead of molasses and water to treat the Yankee prisoners; but we will not vouch for this liberality, since it happened unluckily for him that he had no opportunity of putting his generous intentions into operation. Whether he would have kept his promise to his ship's crew, must also forever remain a matter of uncertainty.

Now it came to pass that after the capture of the Guerriere, the Macedonian, the Java, and some other of his ships, John Bull called for his two-foot rule, and began to measure the length, and breadth, and thickness of his unfortunate vessels, and found that our frigates were a match for his seventyfours, a discovery which delighted the people of the United States beyond measure, and gave the last blow to their apprehensions of the British navy. He then got a nice pair of scales, and putting on his spectacles, began to weigh some of our cannon balls that had stuck in his ribs, and to calculate the weight of our iron metal, instead of looking to another kind of mettle, for the true cause of his numerous and deplorable disasters. Some way or other, with the aid of measuring, and weighing, and calculating, and putting on a little here, and clipping away a little there, he managed to make out a tolerable case, at least he managed to put a good face on the matter, and having collected all the force of calculation, misrepresentation, and abuse, he has poured it upon our heads in the form of a synopsis, the first part of which we have given to the readers in our present number.

It will be perceived that the "British officer on the American station" takes up and examines separately each action, stating a sort of debtor and creditor account, and striking the balance with affected arithmetical precision. This method