About a month after the action, two sailors claiming to be deserters from the “President” arrived at Halifax and made affidavits,[36] which gave a third account quite different from the other two. One of these men, an Englishman, swore that he had been stationed in the second division, on the gun-deck of the “President;” that a gun in that division went off, as he thought, by accident, four or five men leaning on it; that he had turned to acquaint Lieutenant Belden, who commanded that division, of the fact, but before he could do this, though the lieutenant was only three guns from him, the whole broadside of the “President” was discharged. This story was the least probable of the three. The evidence of a deserter, under every motive to ingratiate himself with his future officers, would be suspicious, even if he were proved to have been in the “President’s” crew, which was not the case; but it became valueless when the rolls showed no Lieutenant Belden on board the “President,” but that the second division on the gun-deck was commanded by Lieut. A. J. Dallas,--and Lieutenant Dallas swore that he himself fired the first gun from the “President,” without orders, in answer to the “Little Belt’s” discharge. The evidence of every other officer and man at the guns supported his assertion. When the contradictory reports of Rodgers and Bingham were published, a controversy arose between the newspapers which sympathized with the different captains. Rodgers was vehemently attacked by the English and Federalist press; Bingham was as hotly scouted by the American newspapers friendly to Madison. The dispute was never settled. Perhaps this was the only instance where the honor of the services was so deeply involved on both sides as to make the controversy important; for if Rodgers, all his officers, and his whole crew behaved as Bingham alleged, and perjured themselves afterward to conceal it, they were not the men they were supposed to be; and if Bingham swore falsely, he went far to establish the worst American charges against the character of the British navy. For this reason some little effort to form an opinion on the subject deserves to be made, even at the risk of diffuseness. The elaborate investigation by the United States government settled the weight of testimony in favor of Rodgers. Other evidence raised doubts of the accuracy of Bingham’s report. This report was dated May 21, five days after the battle, in “lat. 36° 53´ N.; long. 71° 49´ W. Cape Charles bearing W. 48 miles,”--which, according to the senior lieutenant’s evidence, May 29, was about the spot of the action, from fifty to fifty-four miles east of Cape Charles. Yet a glance at the map showed that these bearings marked a point more than two hundred miles east of Cape Charles. This carelessness could not be set to the account of a misprint.