The last inaccuracy in the basis of this writer's account current is, in stating the number of men on board the Wasp at one hundred and sixty-five, when in reality her crew consisted of only one hundred and ten, of whom a number were boys, smaller than those of the Frolic, but still not exactly fit for any nursery but that of seamen. In stating the comparative loss on either side, the unfortunate officer is again forced into the acknowledgment, that, notwithstanding the disparity of ships and men, as stated by himself, "it was far too great a disproportion." Again we ask, to what could this disproportion be owing but to a superiority in skill, activity, energy, in every thing in fact that constitutes the superiority of one man over another?

"I have now the painful task of presenting the character of an enemy in no very favourable light," continues the writer of the Synopsis. He then proceeds with a statement, which, as it furnishes a brilliant specimen of the usual style in which the character of our nation and its officers is treated in the British publications of the day, we will quote at length, for fear the reader should not sufficiently recollect it. "The Frolic, for want of after sails, fell on board her opponent soon after the action commenced, with her bowsprit betwixt the Wasp's main and mizen rigging, and so continued until the conflict ended, unable to bring a single gun to bear. What enemy but an Algerine, or an American, seeing the helpless state of his brave adversary, would not have ceased firing, and rushed on board to end at once the slaughter and the combat? No; two motives prevented this:-one, the expected gratification of seeing the British haul down their own flag: the other, (doubtless by far the most powerful one) their dread of venturing sword in hand upon the Frolic's deck. One of the Wasp's men, it seems, made a show of boarding. Not yet,' says captain Jones, another broadside first.' Poured into her it was, and repeated again and again; nor did they dare to board this poor wreck at last, till the captain and his friend Biddle, (now commander of the Hornet)

peeping over the gun-wale, saw with surprise but three men standing on the Frolic's deck. Then they did board in gallant style, and stepping over dead, and dying, and wounded, (with which the deck was covered) received the sword of the British commander."

There is something extremely pitiful in all this, and were it not that the colouring which is given to this detail might deceive those who are ignorant of the usages of war, we might leave it without further comment. The plain English of this rare specimen of rhetoric is, that the Frolic, it blowing a gale, fell on board the Wasp, in such a way as to give the latter vessel great advantages in firing into her, and that captain Jones preferred preserving this advantage to boarding at a disadvantage, which must have been the case in such a heavy sea. How was it possible for captain Jones to know that the crew of the Frolic had quitted their guns, and skulked between decks, labouring, as we all did at that time, under a mistaken idea of the prowess of British sailors? or how was he to know that resistance had finally ceased while the enemy's flag was still flying? Is not this the way that all nations, except the British, fight? Do they not calculate advantages, take advantage of any favourable position, and fire till they know their enemy is conquered? When captain Broke boarded the Chesapeake, several of the crew of that vessel were killed by firing down her gangway, after all resistance had ceased; yet no complaint on our part was made, because every one knows that in the heat of battle it is impossible to know the precise moment when the enemy is conquered. We never compared the British to the Algerines on that occasion, whether from regard to the feelings of the latter we will not pretend to say. The last reflection on the events of this action, even as detailed by the writer of the Synopsis, will convince every reader of judgment that he has here converted the ordinary incidents of almost every sea-fight into an accusation that has not the least foundation, even if the basis he has assumed be true. But we are authorized to state posi

tively and unequivocally, that only one single gun was fired into the Frolic after she fell on board the Wasp. The Frolic was then taken possession of, all her surviving crew, to the number of near fifty, having run below, leaving the captain, the first lieutenant, and purser, alone on the deck. Captain Jones then received the sword of captain Whinyates, and no doubt did walk over the deck, which was "covered with dead, and dying, and wounded men," as is usual on such occasions. If, however," the task of presenting the enemy's character in no favourable light" is so "painful" to this writer, why did he not sooth his feelings by detailing the high and courteous humanity of Lawrence in exposing even the lives of his own men to save the drowning crew of the Peacock;-the generosity of Bainbridge, acknowledged by lieutenant general Hyslop-and the conduct of Perry and Macdonough, in paroling, on their own authority, their wounded antagonists, treating them, as was acknowledged by captain Barclay, "like brothers?" Such a candid writer as this ought certainly to have remembered these things, and we can only account for his forgetfulness of notorious truths by the supposition, that he was so industriously employed, while engaged in this work, in the pursuits of imagination, that he forgot entirely to resort to his memory for his facts.

In looking back on the Synopsis we perceive that much stress is laid upon the loss of the Frolic's main yard, carried away the evening previous to the engagement in a gale. It may therefore be proper to state, that the Wasp lost her jibboom, and was without it during the action, which was fought running right before the wind, the Wasp under close reefed topsails, and the Frolic under closed reefed fore topsail and reefed main sail. In four minutes after the action began, the main topmast of the Wasp was shot away within two feet of the cap, and from that time to the end of the affair she was more disabled in her spars than the Frolic. Neither ship got a position to rake until the end of the action, when, in consequence of the Frolic endeavouring to sheer from the Wasp to avoid so close an action, by hauling upon the wind, both

vessels were taken aback nearly at the same time, and the Frolic paying off first fell aboard of the Wasp.

The next engagement that occupies the arithmetical ingenuity of the British officer, is that between the Macedonian and the United States, fought on the 25th of the same month of October. On this occasion he falls to cyphering most vehemently, and the result of his calculation is, a superiority of three to two in ship, guns, and men, all "picked men,” too, and "in buckram," no doubt, on the side of us unlucky Americans. We might state, in contradiction to this, that, in the first place, the Macedonian, instead of eleven hundred is twelve hundred American tons, and the United States only fourteen hundred and fifty, instead of sixteen hundred and thirty, as stated by the writer of the Synopsis;--in the second place, that the United States had neither shifting guns nor howitzers in the tops, and that the number of men on one side is considerably exaggerated, on the other materially diminished; but the writer has kindly saved us the trouble.

Again he is compelled to notice, that "the relative execution done in this action was still more disproportionate than in any former one," to wit, one hundred and four to twelve. Admitting the relative force to be what he states, three to two, we have here a relative loss of almost nine to one. This he ascribes to "the novel manner in which the action was fought:" that is, as we shall directly substantiate, to the superiority of skill displayed by captain Decatur, and the shyness of captain Carden. To the proof.

"Our ship," says the British officer, "had the weather guage; but captain Carden kept at long balls' till all his topmasts were shot away, and his ship had become an unmanage able wreck." Why did he so? The Macedonian, it has since been ascertained, easily outsails the United States; she was to windward in the engagement; the two vessels crossed each other on opposite tacks, each dead upon a wind, and thus commenced the action. It was therefore in his power to close with his antagonist, and in his only. These facts were proved

by the concurrent testimony of all his officers on captain Carden's court martial, which, on that testimony, passed a direct censure on his conduct in not closing when it was in his power. It must be acknowledged however that the Macedonian was, as the writer states, "an unmanageable wreck" in a very few minutes after she came within touching distance of the United States; and really we think it rather hard to be thus, as it were, censured for the shyness of our enemy, or for our skill in taking advantage of it. It only proves, what we have all along asserted, that our officers and seamen are superior to those of Great Britain. Palliate their disasters as they may, this is the inevitable conclusion to be drawn, even from the statements of their own apologists.

As much reliance is placed, by the writer of the Synopsis, on the alledged superiority of the American frigates, and the weight of their metal, we will state the following facts, which are derived from a gentleman present on the occasion to which we refer. Not more than three months previous to the declaration of war, the United States and Macedonian were lying together at Norfolk, where captain Carden was treated with the hospitality for which that place is distinguished, and where he and commodore Decatur often dined together at the houses of different gentlemen. The same officers and crews were attached to both ships that were in them when the engagement afterwards took place; and they visited each others ship daily. On one of these meetings, at the table of the consul at Norfolk, in the presence of a number of gentlemen, the conversation turned on the comparative fore of the two ships, their armament, and the number as well as excellence of their crews. Captain Carden then stated, that a British thirty-eight gun frigate was fully ascertained by experience to be the most efficient single decked vessel that ever "swam the ocean;" that any increase of size was worse than useless, as it only rendered them more unmanageable; that long eighteen pounders had been demonstrated to be better than twenty-fours, and could actually throw a greater weight of metal in a given time,