The _Constitution_ had again crushed the enemy with so little damage to herself that she was ready to continue her cruise, with a loss of only nine killed and twenty-five wounded. The _Java_ was a fine ship utterly destroyed, a sinking, dismasted hulk, with a hundred and twenty-four of her men dead or suffering from wounds. It is significant to learn that during six weeks at sea they had fired but six practice broadsides, of blank cartridges, although there were many raw hands in the crew, while the men of the _Constitution_ had been incessantly drilled in firing until their team play was like that of a football eleven. There was no shooting at random. Under Hull and Bainbridge they had been taught their trade, which was to lay the gun on the target and shoot as rapidly as possible. For the diminutive American navy, the year of 1812 came to its close with a record of success so illustrious as to seem almost incredible. It is more dignified to refrain from extolling our own exploits and to recall the effects of these sea duels upon the minds of the people, the statesmen, and the press of the England of that period. Their outbursts of wrathful humiliation were those of a maritime race which cared little or nothing about the course of the American war by land. Theirs was the salty tradition, virile and perpetual, which a century later and in a friendlier guise was to create a Grand Fleet which should keep watch and ward in the misty Orkneys and hold the Seven Seas safe against the naval power of Imperial Germany. Then, as now, the English nation believed that its armed ships were its salvation. It is easier to understand, bearing this in mind, why after the fight of the _Guerriere_ the London _Times_ indulged in such frenzied lamentations as these: We witnessed the gloom which that event cast over high and honorable minds.... Never before in the history of the world did an English frigate strike to an American, and though we cannot say that Captain Dacres, under all circumstances, is punishable for this act, yet we do say there are commanders in the English navy who would a thousand times rather have gone down with their colors flying than to have set their fellow sailors so fatal an example. Good God! that a few short months should have so altered the tone of British sentiments! Is it true, or is it not, that our navy was accustomed to hold the Americans in utter contempt? Is it true, or is it not, that the _Guerriere_ sailed up and down the American coast with her name painted in large characters on her sails in boyish defiance of Commodore Rodgers? Would any captain, however young, have indulged such a foolish piece of vain-boasting if he had not been carried forward by the almost unanimous feeling of his associates?