for lack of argument, to pass by the cyphering business.** It is that cyphering business,' that debtor and creditor account,'t in the naval warfare between the two countries, that is fast withering the laurels, with which one of them has, of late, so strutted in caricatura.

Who it is that weighs balls with the most minute precision,' let American naval officers and American naval histories tell.§

The author, although he is no naval officer,' would be ashamed to be convicted of having stated, that the loss of a ship's 'jib-boom' is equal, in point of importance, to the loss of a brig's 'main-yard.'|| But, in truth, was the Wasp without her jib-boom? If so, as she carried it away three days before the action,¶ her officers and crew must have been very negligent

* Analectic Mag. and Nav. Chron. Vol. VII. p. 307.
+ Ibid. 302.
+ Ibid. p. 304.

§ Naval History of the United States, Vol. I. p. 179– American Naval Monument, p. 141. 181.-James's Naval Occurrences, p. 10. 124. 365.

Analectic Mag. and Naval Chron. Vol. VII. p. 388.
Naval Monument, p. 13.

in not having rigged a fresh one; and M. Corné,' the Boston painter, and his employer, "A. Bowen,' the Boston engraver, are chargeable with unpardonable inaccuracy, for having given to the Wasp, in their representation of the Frolic's capture,* a 'jib-boom,' and no short one either. After stating that the Wasp's crew' consisted, in reality, of only 110," the writer does not proceed far in his magazine of

wonders,' before he introduces the following paragraph: They (the American captain and one of his officers) testified, on oath, that the whole number of persons on board the Wasp, previous to the action, was 137;' §-actually within one of the author's statement.T

In the very teeth of American official papers, does this American writer allege, that no complaint' was made, when several

* Naval Monument, p. 13.

† Analectic Mag. and Nav. Chronicle, Vol. VII. p. 387. Ib. 382. § Ib. 487.

James's Naval Occurrences, p. 152.

|| Nav. Monument, p. 63.-James's Nav. Occurr. p. 223.

of the crew of the Chesapeake were killed, by firing down the gangway.'*

To the fabulous account,' that the vessel said to have declined engaging the President off Sandy Hook, was not a small frigate,' the Loire, but the ، Plantaganet 74, nothing was wanted but the trial of her commanding officer.'t This trial our ، candid reviewer is‘authorized to affirm' took place at Bermuda. By way of corroborating, what must appear to all but him and his party as, an 'absurd and ridiculous story,' he brings to his aid- the express admission of an officer of marines, then in the squadron cruizing off New York, and now a consul in one of our ports. Who can this be but lieutenant Patrick Savage, at that time of the Narcissus frigate, and now, or lately, consul at Norfolk, Virginia? It is to be hoped that the statement will meet his eye, if only to afford

* Analectic Mag. and Nav. Chron. Vol. VII. p. 388. + James's Naval Occurrences, p. 324.

Analectic Mag, and Nav. Chron. Vol. VIII. p. 136.

him an opportunity of doing justice to his brother-officers late of the Plantaganet.

After, in several instances, flatly contradicting his own official accounts, the American reviewer puts European gravity to the test, by declaring, first, that his government made war in defence of the universal rights of man,* and next, that the modest,' or, as recently and more truly styled, arrogant,' commodore Perry, when he filched the commencing words

6

of Nelson's letter, was paying his lordship

a high compliment.'t

Had the writer in the American Chronicle' employed less

Naval

acrimony,' and

more research, in his calling, he might have received the author's thanks for pointing out several real inaccuracies,' particularly as to the size and armaments of the American ships. But these inaccuracies,' along with the hated cyphering business,' he has let 'pass by,' to

* Analectic Mag. and Nav. Chron. vol. VIII. p. 185. + Ib. 145.

James's Nav. Occurr. p. 294.

be rectified by the author himself, in his two works, that followed, in quick succession, that little hastily-drawn sketch, which, the American reviewer, not having seen those works, is pleased to say, appears to contain all that has hitherto been urged, as well as every thing that can be urged, in extenuation of the numerous disasters of England during the last war;'* but, as he more truly than consistently adds, "which is in reality an indifferent production. If so, therefore; and if the production' teems with admissions, such as British officers' ought to 'feel mortified at,' why is the American reviewer, in his candid' examination of it, so extremely irritable? Even his own countrymen, the gentle' readers for whose entertainment he has labored and sweated so much, will attribute his anger to the dilemma into which he is placed, by the novel' way of weighing

-

and measuring, by the pound and by the foot,'battles' that have turned out SO

* Analectic Mag. and Nav. Chron. Vol. VII. p. 289. Ib. Vol. VII. p. 307.

+ Ib. p. 295.