ty men; the
Macedonian, forty-nine guns and three hundred men; a very great
disparity, which, united to the other circumstances of this action,
deprives the victory of all claims to glory beyond those that might be
set up by a river-horse getting the better of a seal.

But if Tawney spoke truth--and he was a truth-telling man this fact
seemed counterbalanced by a circumstance he related. When the guns of
the Englishman were examined, after the engagement, in more than one
instance the wad was found rammed against the cartridge, without
intercepting the ball. And though, in a frantic sea-fight, such a thing
might be imputed to hurry and remissness, yet Tawney, a stickler for
his tribe, always ascribed it to quite a different and less honourable
cause. But, even granting the cause he assigned to have been the true
one, it does not involve anything inimical to the general valour
displayed by the British crew. Yet, from all that may be learned from
candid persons who have been in sea-fights, there can be but little
doubt that on board of all ships, of whatever nation, in time of
action, no very small number of the men are exceedingly nervous, to say
the least, at the guns; ramming and sponging at a venture. And what
special patriotic interest could an impressed man, for instance, take
in a fight, into which he had been dragged from the arms of his wife?
Or is it to be wondered at that impressed English seamen have not
scrupled, in time of war, to cripple the arm that has enslaved them?

During the same general war which prevailed at and previous to the
period of the frigate-action here spoken of, a British flag-officer, in
writing to the Admiralty, said, "Everything appears to be quiet in the
fleet; but, in preparing for battle last week, several of the guns in
the after part of the ship were found to be spiked;" that is to say,
rendered useless. Who had spiked them? The dissatisfied seamen. Is it
altogether improbable, then, that the guns to which Tawney referred
were manned by men who purposely refrained from making them tell on the
foe; that, in this one action, the victory America gained was partly
won for her by the sulky insubordination of the enemy himself?

During this same period of general war, it was frequently the case that
the guns of English armed ships were found in the mornings with their
breechings cut over night. This maiming of the guns, and for the time
incapacitating them, was only to be imputed to th