The Peacock, by his own acknowledgment, was of three hundred and eighty tons, and, from the best information which could be procured by our officers, she carried one hundred and thirty-nine men. But even admitting the difference stated by himself to be correct, will this account for the result? In fifteen minutes from the first fire the Peacock struck, and went down so immediately after, that some of our own men were drowned in attempting to save her crew. In less than two hours after the action, the Hornet had all her damages repaired, her boats hoisted in and stowed away, and was ready for action with another British sloop of war, which was in sight during the whole engagement, but which doubtless, from a principle of honour, kept aloof, and did not interfere either before or after. The Peacock had five killed and thirty-eight wounded; the Hornet one killed and two wounded-making a difference of five to one in killed, and nineteen to one in wounded. This is rather more than the difference in men, guns, and tonnage will warrant, even if we take the statement of the British naval officer for our guide. Again he is forced to acknowledge it to have been owing to the superiority of our skill. "Never," says he, " was there a finer specimen of marine gunnery than the Americans displayed in this engagement." Here once more we have the key to the whole affair, and the admission is still more remarkable, as being the only specimen of candour exhibited in the whole course of the labours of the British naval officer,

In this memorable engagement, perhaps more decisive of a superiority on the part of the Americans than any that ever occurred, our people exhibited, in the most striking manner, their humanity to the conquered enemy. They risked their lives in saving them, and some of our gallant seamen were drowned in the attempt. They afterwards generously subscribed a portion of their pay to clothe the survivors of the Peacock's crew, who had lost their baggage when that vessel sunk. We should scorn to mention these things, did not the want of candour, as well as truth, which distinguishes almost

all the accounts of our country published in England, render it an act of self defence to proclaim our kindnesses to this ungrateful enemy, who measures our character by his own antipathies, and who, in the mortification of his defeats, forgets that justice is due even to an opponent.

66

Against this loss," continues the officer, "we have to place the capture of the Vixen, and the Viper, of similar force to the Nautilus." He wisely however abstains from giving the relative force in these instances. It did not suit his purpose, for the Vixen was taken by the Southampton frigate of thirty-six guns, and much as we feel our superiority, we hardly think an American brig of sixteen guns a match for a British frigate of six and thirty. The Viper was originally built for an anchor hoy, then turned into a gun-boat-was afterwards rigged as a cutter, but being found unfit for either gunboat or cutter, was rigged as a brig, and laughed at by every body. She was taken by a frigate or seventy-four, we forget which. These two brilliant victorics are, however, put forth as a sort of offset against one of the finest victories ever gained by one sloop of war over another; and although they seem to have little to do in a question of superior skill and gallantry, we are willing to let them go for what they are worth. In an account current, like that of our great arithmetician, where the balance is so heavy against him, it would be ungenerous to scrutinize his little credits too severely, and therefore let them pass.

When people have but little to boast of they are somewhat excusable to make as much of a small matter as they can; and we are therefore neither surprised nor mortified at the triumphant exhibition of the battle between the Shannon and Chesapeake for the second time in the Synopsis. It was fought, says the writer, " on the ever glorious first of June," which the reader may possibly recollect is the anniversary of lord Howe's victory. The result of this action every body knows; and though it was fought under many disadvantages

on our side, as well as with an inferiority of force, we will give them the credit of this victory, not only because we can well spare it, but because we wish to set them an example of candour. True it is, that the Shannon was a thirty-eight gun frigate, carrying fifty-three, according to the testimony of all the surviving officers of the Chesapeake, and carrying, by the admission of this writer himself, three hundred and thirty men. The victualling book of the Chesapeake, to which he refers, is of little authority, when it is known that captain Lawrence put to sea almost immediately on the appearance of the Shannon, and that his men having leave, were many of them on shore, and could not be found in time. From the best authority we state, that her crew, at the time of the action, did not come up to three hundred and fifty men-so far from being "picked," as the writer of the Synopsis states, that they were in a state of great discontent, in consequence of some delay in the receipt of prize money. The Chesapeake mounted but forty-eight guns; and it is worthy of remark that this difference of five guns is precisely what in reality constituted the difference in the number of the guns of the Constitution, the Guerriere, and the Java. But we will not descend to imitate the English in their excuses. If the crew, and the inferior officers of the Chesapeake, were disaffected, or inexperienced, they were in this instance inferior to their enemy; and so far as this instance, and that of the Argus, can weigh against eighteen or twenty on the other side, let it have its full weight. Far be it from us to say, that accident, or some other cause, will not sometimes give a victory to our enemies: for we know that there are cases in which a French ship has beat a British one of equal force. Yet we never inferred from this, that the former was superior to the latter in skill and bravery. This would be a new species of demonstration, making the truth of a position to depend, not upon the number, but the rarity of its proofs, and establishing a fact on the basis of nineteen contradictions out of twenty. It would be like breaking down a general rule on the authority of a single exception, and con

verting that single exception into a general rule. We recollect a blustering sort of an English sailor in one of our country villages, a sort of Pindar of Wakefield, that is, a kind of rural champion, who goes to town meetings, reviews, and horse racings, picking quarrels with peaceable people, and bullying those who he thinks will not fight. In the same village was a queer, slouching, good-natured countryman, a great talker, but withal of a quiet, peaceable disposition, and very slow to anger. These two never met but the bully, who by dint of being beaten tolerably often had got pretty well used to it, made it a point to force this peaceable man into a fight. True, he always got the worst of it except once, when his antagonist was a little out of order. But although beaten a dozen times afterwards, he insisted upon it that this one case was a decided proof that he was the greater bruiser of the two. His rival, who was, as we said before, a good-natured lad, sometimes laughed at the braggart, and sometimes beat him, just as he happened to be in the humour. But he could never cure him of boasting of his single victory to his dying day.

Thus it is with this affair of the Chesapeake, which, according to the writer of the Synopsis, is to weigh against every other proof to the contrary, and to establish the fact of British naval superiority beyond contradiction. At such preposterous claims a man can do nothing but laugh, for it would be ridiculous to fall into a passion because the enemy we have beaten will not acknowledge himself beaten. This would be too much to expect from honest John Bull, as he calls himself, who, so far as we recollect, was never yet known to acknowledge any thing to his disadvantage.

The loss of the Chesapeake was nothing; and had she sunk to the bottom of the ocean, the people would have rejoiced that a vessel, through whose sides the nation had long before been stabbed to the heart, had disappeared forever. But the loss of the brave Lawrence was felt, and long will be felt, as a national calamity. His death, coupled with the circumstances which attended it: with his bodily wounds-his

mental anxieties-his glorious and ever to be remembered exclamation of "Don't give up the ship"-all these, combined with the knowledge that his valiant spirit prompted him to accept the challenge unprepared, and with the memory of his previous victory, excited a feeling towards him in this country which we would not exchange for the knighthood and the silver plate of captain Broke, or the pompous eulogiums of the British naval officer.

There are some things brought into the statement of this action, which we think the writer had better have let alone. His attempt to prove that the men of the Chesapeake were all giants, because their irons pinched them, savours too much of ancient fable. The breed of giants is generally supposed to be extinct, and the attempt to revive a belief in their existence is rather what we might call a forlorn hope at best. The early discoverers of Patagonia, being obliged to run away before the natives, called them in revenge giants, and the British naval officers, being equally alarmed, have resorted to the same expedient as a salvo to their honour-to varnish over their defeats, or swell a solitary victory into a factitious consequence. The impudence of these pretences is almost equal to their folly. Every body conversant with the two nations knows, that Englishmen are in general larger and heavier than the Americans. It is a difference that strikes every traveller; and the idea of picking out large men for our ships is too ridiculous to be credited any where except in England, which has suffered for her ignorance of America, and will suffer still more in all probability, unless more pains are taken to come at the truth.

So with respect to the relative loss of the two vessels. He has swelled that of the Chesapeake from one hundred and forty-six to one hundred and seventy, as if determined to glut himself this once at least with blood and carnage. He riots to the very lips in slaughter; and, in order to have full play, kills and wounds twenty-four men with a stroke of his sanguinary pen. Then being fully sated, it would seem, with his