chance, after the prevailing easterly winds had
obliged us to keep an offing from the coast."

[137] For the reason here assigned, and others mentioned in the
narrative, the author has preferred to follow in the main James'
account, analyzed, and compared with Broke's report (Naval Chronicle,
vol. xxx. p. 83), and with the testimony in the Court of Inquiry held in
Boston on the surrender of the "Chesapeake," and in the resultant courts
martial upon Lieutenant Cox and other persons connected with the ship,
which are in the Navy Department MSS. The official report of Lieutenant
Budd, the senior surviving officer of the "Chesapeake", is published in
Niles' Register (vol. iv, p. 290), which gives also several unofficial
statements of onlookers, and others.

[138] Not "across"; the distinction is important, being decisive of
general raking direction.

[139] Actually, a contemporary account, borrowed by the British "Naval
Chronicle" (vol. xxx. p. 161) from a Halifax paper, but avouched as
trustworthy, says the "Chesapeake" was terribly battered on the larboard
bow as well as quarter. The details in the text indicate merely the
local preponderance of injury, and the time and manner of its
occurrence.

[140] A slight qualification is here needed, in that of the injured of
the "Shannon" some were hurt in the boarding, not by the cannonade; but
the general statement is substantially accurate.

[141] Decatur to Navy Department. Captains' Letters, June, 1813.

[142] Decatur to Navy Department. Captains' Letters, June, 1813.

[143] Naval Chronicle, vol. xxix. p. 497.

[144] Croker to Warren, Jan. 9, 1813. Admiralty Out-Letters, British
Records Office. My italics.

[145] Message of the Governor of Connecticut, October, 1813. Niles'
Register, vol. v. p. 121.

[146] Message of the Governor of Connecticut, October, 1813. Niles'
Register, vol. v. p. 121.

[147] Niles' Register, vol. v. p. 302.

[148] Captains' Letters.

[149] Niles' Register, vol. vi. p. 136.

[150] Captains' Letters, Nov. 3 and Dec. 31, 1809; March 26, 1810; and
Oct. 12, 1813.

[151] American State Papers, Naval Affairs, vol. i. p. 307.

[152] Ante, page 16.

[153] The official reports of Warren and Cockburn concerning these
operations are published in the Naval Chronicle, vol. xxx. pp. 162-168.

[154] Captains' Letters, June 21, 1813.

[155] The American official account of this affair is given in Niles'
Register, vol. iv. pp. 375, 422. James'