There were three or four more of these utterly unequal fights, in which the Americans succeeded in capturing small British vessels when at the point of sinking. Such was the case with the _Macedon_, which, with a crew of two hundred and sixty-two men and thirty-four boys, fought the _United States_, with more and heavier guns, and with a crew of four hundred and seventy-seven men and one boy. The _Macedon_ was a complete wreck before she struck. Similar cases were those of the _Java_ frigate, Captain Lambert, which struck to the _Constitution_, and the British eighteen-gun brig-sloop the _Frolic_, which struck to the American brig-sloop _Wasp_, of eighteen guns. Here the arms were equal, but the crews most unequal, for the _Frolic_ had a small crew, very sickly from five years' service in the West Indies, and the ship itself was in bad condition. Within a very few hours the _Frolic_ was re-captured by the British seventy-four gun-ship, the _Poictiers_, which carried off the American vessel too. In none of these cases was there anything like an equal fight, the Americans being too shrewd to risk that if they could avoid it. In all cases a large proportion of the crews was made up of British deserters. The accounts, however, which the Americans published of these affairs were as usual of the most vaunting character. This was the fatal year in which Buonaparte, led on by the unsleeping ambition of being the master of all Europe, and so of all the world, made his last great attempt--that of subduing Russia to his yoke--and thus wrecked himself for ever. From the very day of the Treaty of Tilsit, neither he nor Alexander of Russia had put faith in each other. Buonaparte felt that the Czar was uneasy under the real dictatorship of France which existed under the name of alliance. He knew that he was most restless under the mischief accruing from the stipulated embargo on British commerce, and which, from the ruin which it must bring on the Russian merchants, and the consequent distress of the whole population, might, in fact, cause him to disappear from the throne and from life as so many of his ancestors had done. Timber, pitch, potash, hemp, tallow, and other articles were the very staple of Russia's trade, and the British were the greatest of all customers for these. The landed proprietors derived a large income from these commodities, and they asked why they were to perish that Buonaparte might destroy Great Britain, whence they drew their principal wealth. He knew that Alexander looked with deep suspicion on his giving the Duchy of Warsaw to the King of Saxony, a descendant of the royal family of Poland. To this act was added the stipulations for a free military road and passage for troops from Saxony to Warsaw; and also that France should retain Dantzic till after a maritime peace. These things seemed to point to the re-establishment of the kingdom of Poland, and the demand, at some future day, for the surrender of the rest of the Polish