[Illustration: The United States Frigate _Essex_. _From a lithograph at the Naval Academy, Annapolis._] Lest these stories seem to the humane reader to exaggerate the horrors of life on a British naval ship, the following facts from the London “Annual Register” for 1781 (page 41 of “Principal Occurrences”) will be found conclusive: The total number of men “raised” for the navy, 1776 to 1780, was 170,928. Of these, 1,243 only were killed by the enemy, while 18,545 “died,” and 42,069 _deserted_. More than ten per cent. of all who were “raised” “died,” while almost one-fourth of them all succeeded in deserting, in spite of the rigors of the imprisonment into which they were carried. It is necessary to give figures relating to the Revolutionary period instead of the era of the War of 1812, because British officials have absolutely refused to publish any such statistics since 1800. What bearing all these facts have on the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain, if not plain already, will very soon appear. Animated by the belief that “our maritime supremacy is in fact a part of the law of nations,” and by the further belief that “America certainly cannot pretend to wage war with us; she has no navy to do it with,” the British naval officers kidnapped English-speaking sailors wherever they were found, even when these sailors were confessedly born citizens of the United States. The British government did, indeed, rule that where an American (natural-born) had a certificate from the American government attesting his nativity--where he could, by documentary evidence, prove his nativity--he might be excused by the British “recruiting” gangs, but the rule was, in fact, a mere diplomatic subterfuge for use should policy at any time require a “disavowal.” In actual practice the only judge of a man’s citizenship was the recruiting officer of the short-handed ship, and the lithe-limbed Yankee sailor was just the kind of a man the British press-gang was looking for. In fact, the British periodicals of that day continuously scoffed at these citizenship papers, and it was asserted in Parliament, as well as by the press, that the American naval officers, as well as naval officials stationed on shore, deliberately issued false papers at every opportunity--in short, that the Americans, as a nation, were liars, perjurers, and forgers.