The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1894-08-04

and that Dacres once bet him hat on
the result of a fight between their re-
spective vessels, SO that when Dacres
surrendered his sword Hull politely re-
fused it, but added, playfully: "Tl
trouble you for that hat" The story
is good enough to be true. They re-
manned excellent friends after the war.
The second great frigate conquered
was the Macedonian, which surren-
dered to the United States, command
ed by Decatur, after sanguinary bat
tie, in which she lost one hundred
and four, killed and wounded, out of
crew of two hundred and ninety-sev-
en-. When the Java, after q third
great battle, in which she was so rid
died that she had to be blown up, sur
rendered to the Constitution, then
under cambridge, the London Times
emitted a prolonged wall. Lloyd's
list, it said, contains notices of up
ward of five hundred British vessels
captured in seven months by the Amer
leans. Five hundred merchantmen
and three frigates! Can these state
ments be true? Can the English peo-
pie hear them unmoved? Anyone
| who had predicted such result OF an
American war this time last year
would have been treated as a mailman
! or o traitor" Then, adding that 1t
had been expected that in seven
months Americas flag would be swept
from the seas and her little navy ami
hilated, it said: "Yet down to this
moment not single American frig-
ate has struck her flag" However,
change came when the Chesapeake,
| under brave Lawrence, surrendered to
the Shannon, under Broke, while the
Essex, too, under Porter. after a re.
marlxably bold cruise n the Pacific, was
overwhelmed by pair of antagonists,
the Phoebe and the Cherub. But she
had meanwhile captured four thou
sand tons of British shipping and had
dealt heavy blow to British COM
merce.
The American sloops did their part
as brilliantly as the frigates. The Pea
cock was sunk in action by Lawrence's
Hornet, and the Wasp, under Master
Commandant Jones, cut to pieces the
Frolic. The Argus, however, was
beaten by the British Pelican, and the
Viper and the Vixen fell into the hands
of big frigates without resistance. But
the Enterprise, under Lieut.. Burrows,
who, like his opponent, was killed in
the action, gained a fine victory for
America over the Boxer. Perry's mag
nificent triumph on Lake Erie also be-
longs to the period covered by this
| volume.
Mr.. Maclay rightly says that the
hard blow to British pride, and the
i harder because Americas laurels were
won by a force which England had
ridiculed. The London Statesman of
June 10, 1912, had declared that "Amer-
lea certainly cannot pretend to wage
war with us. She has no navy to do it
with" But after the loss of two frig-
ates the London Times declared .'Our
sea spell is broken" To appreciate
what our young navy really did we
must note that at the beginning of 1919
the British navy was lin the zenith of
| its glory It had matched its strength
against the combined navies of the
greatest maritime nations of the world,
| and had come off victor. In two hum
dred actions between single ships it
had been defeated but five times. and
| on those occasions the British ship is
| admitted to be of inferior force. But
in two and half years of naval war
with the United States, British COM
merce was almost annihilated, and in
|.eighteen naval engagements the royal
navy sustained fifteen defeats" Over
| fifteen hundred English vessels and
more than twenty thousand seamen,
says our author, were captured in this
war.
The disparity in losses was another
surprise to the British. At Trafalgar,
Nelson's flagship, Victory, lost fifty
seven killed and one hundred and two
wounded, out of six hundred men and
boys; but the Java lost sixty killed and
one hundred and one wounded out OF
four hundred and twenty-six, and our
Constitution had only nine killed and
twenty-five wounded. In the great
| fight off Camperdown, the seventy-four-
gun ship Monarch, which lost most
heavily of all on the British side, had
thirty-six killed and one hundred
wounded ont of five hundred and nine
ty-three, whereas, in the eighteen
minute battle between the eighteen
gun sloops Wasp and Reindeer, the
English lost twenty-five killed and
forty-two wounded. and the Frolic, in
her battle with the Wasp, had fifteen
killed and forty-seven wounded out of
one hundred and ten, the American
losing only five killed and five wounded.
In casting about for the reason OF
the American successes we must doubt
less trace it, first to the fatal under
rating of our navy by the British.
They had been so accustomed for gem
eratlons to beating others against
odds that they forgot that it was .
different matter to attack, in the same
way, men of their own seafaring race,