ilitary detachment intrusted to Warren, the
Admiralty, while declining to give particular directions as to its
employment, wrote him: "Against a maritime country like America, the
chief towns and establishments of which are situated upon navigable
rivers, a force of the kind under your orders must necessarily be
peculiarly formidable.... In the choice of objects of attack, it will
naturally occur to you that on every account any attempt which should
have the effect of crippling the enemy's naval force should have a
preference."[161] Except for the accidental presence of Decatur's
frigates in New London, as yet scarcely known to the British
commander-in-chief, Norfolk, more than any other place, met this
prescription of his Government. His next movements, therefore, may be
considered as resulting directly from his instructions.

The first occurrence was a somewhat prolonged engagement between a
division of fifteen gunboats and the frigate "Junon," which, having
been sent to destroy vessels at the mouth of the James River, was
caught becalmed and alone in the upper part of Hampton Roads; no other
British vessel being nearer than three miles. The cannonade continued
for three quarters of an hour, when a breeze springing up brought two
of her consorts to the "Junon's" aid. The gunboats, incapable of close
action with a single frigate in a working breeze, necessarily now
retreated. They had suffered but slightly, one killed and two wounded;
but retired with the confidence, always found in the accounts of such
affairs, that they had inflicted great damage upon the enemy. The
commander of a United States revenue cutter, lately captured, who was
on board the frigate at the time, brought back word subsequently that
she had lost one man killed and two or three wounded.[162] The British
official reports do not allude to the affair. As regards positive
results, however, it may be affirmed with considerable assurance that
the military value of gunboats in their day, as a measure of coast
defence, was not what they effected, but the caution imposed upon the
enemy by the apprehension of what they might effect, did this or that
combination of circumstances occur. That the circumstances actually
almost never arose detracted little from this moral influence. The
making to one's self a picture of possible consequences is a powerful
factor in most military operations; and the gunboat is not without its
representative to-day in the sphere o