Their few frigates being beautifully manned, and immensely superior to ours in size, guns, and number of men, took three of our 48-gun frigates after a severe action. But I do maintain the British navy lost no honour. The enemy’s ships mounted 58 guns, 24 and 42-pounders, with a complement of 487 picked seamen and marines; whereas our ships carried only 48 guns, 18 and 32-pounders, all badly manned, and one, the _Guerrière_, with only 187 men at quarters, the other two, the _Java_ and _Macedonian_, had nearly their complement of 300 men such as they were. The strength, size, and number of guns of the American ships were too great for ours. Persons not conversant with nautical affairs, imagine that one frigate is as good as another; but that is not the case, for it is very clear that a man of five feet four inches, weak in proportion, cannot stand against a man of six feet, with nearly double his strength, although both are called men. Another circumstance must be mentioned, which is this. A ship capable of carrying 58 or 60 heavy guns, 30 of which are long 24-pounders on her main deck, must be a much stronger and larger ship, both in hull, masts, and yards, and her masts several inches in diameter bigger than the smaller ship, carrying only 28 18-pounders on the main deck; therefore three, indeed two, if in a fresh breeze of wind, 24-lb. shot striking the main-mast in the same place or nearly so, of the smaller vessel, would knock it away, whereas it would require double the number of the 18-pound shot to cut away that of the larger ship, giving so many more advantages to the bigger ship against the smaller, by the latter being so much sooner crippled. The ridiculous, silly, and mischievous hue and cry that was raised in this country, in consequence of the above action, by a malicious, envious party, to pluck from the navy some of her laurels, needs no comment. It gave a lustre to the above frigate actions of our enemy all over the world which they did not deserve, and made them think themselves much more superior than they were, until the fight between the English frigate, _Shannon_ (48), Captain Philip Broke, and the _Chesapeake_ (49), Captain Laurence, off Boston. The latter had fifty more men than the former, but was taken in fifteen minutes by the gallant Captain Broke, and the ship’s company of the _Shannon_. This brilliant affair, followed a short time afterwards by the action of the _Endymion_ (50), Captain Henry Hope, that mounted 24-pounders on her main deck, and 32-pounders on the quarter-deck, against the _President_ (60), 24-pounders and 42-pounders, which she also captured, proved to them that, when we were more evenly matched, the navy of England was still mistress of the seas.