ESULTS OF THE WAR OF 1812.

Thus terminated the war of 1812, so far as it was connected with the
American marine. The navy came out of this struggle with a vast increase
of reputation. The brilliant style in which the ships had been carried
into action, the steadiness and rapidity with which they had been
handled, and the fatal accuracy of their fire, on nearly every occasion,
produced a new era in naval warfare. Most of the frigate actions had
been as soon decided as circumstances would at all allow, and in no
instance was it found necessary to keep up the fire of a sloop-of-war an
hour, when singly engaged. Most of the combats of the latter, indeed,
were decided in about half that time. The execution done in these short
conflicts was often equal to that made by the largest vessels of
Europe in general actions, and, in some of them, the slain and wounded
comprised a very large proportion of the crews.

It is not easy to say in which nation this unlooked-for result created
the most surprise, America or England. In the first it produced a
confidence in itself that had been greatly wanted, but which, in the
end, perhaps, degenerated to a feeling of self-esteem and security that
were not without danger, or entirely without exaggeration.... The ablest
and bravest captains of the English fleet were ready to admit that a new
power was about to appear on the ocean, and that it was not improbable
the battle for the mastery of the seas would have to be fought over
again.

That the tone and discipline of the service were high, is true; but it
must be ascribed to moral, and not to physical, causes, to that aptitude
in the American character for the sea which has been so constantly
manifested, from the day the first pinnace sailed along the coast, on
the trading voyages of the seventeenth century, down to the present
moment.

Many false modes of accounting for the novel character that had been
given to naval battles were resorted to, and among other reasons, it was
affirmed that the American vessels of war sailed with crews of picked
seamen. That a nation which practiced impressment should imagine that
another in which enlistments were voluntary, could possess an advantage
of this nature, infers a strong disposition to listen to any means but
the right one to account for an unpleasant truth. It is not known that a
single vessel left the country, the case of the Constitution on her two
last cruises excepted, with a crew that cou