Because we know just how many of the shot of the enemy struck the Yankee ship, and approximately how many of our shot struck the enemy, it will be of interest to return once more to the stock argument of the British historians who continuously assert that their frigates were whipped by the superior size of the Yankee guns. They point to the fact that the _United States_ fired 786 pounds of metal at a broadside, while the _Macedonian_ fired only 547 pounds. Therefore, they say, the _United States_ whipped because of this preponderance. It was by no means, if they are to be believed, because the Yankees were abler naval seamen. But an unbiassed student of history is likely to point to the record of shots striking each ship as furnishing figures very much more significant than those relating to the preponderance in weight of metal thrown. The British hulled the Yankee but three times. Suppose she had had twenty-four pounders instead of eighteens. Those three shots would then have made three holes (allowing for “windage”) each 5.657 inches in diameter. The aggregate areas of the holes was 72.66 square inches. Suppose the _United States_ had carried eighteen-pounders, she would have made more than 100 holes in the _Macedonian_, each 5.141 inches in diameter. The aggregate area of the 100 holes in the _Macedonian_ would then have been 2073.39 square inches. So the real damage inflicted, even had the armament been reversed, would have been as 2,073 is to 73. Surely, this computation of the areas of the holes made is quite as pertinent, to say the least, as the weighing of the shot. The combined holes made by the _Macedonian_ equalled one hole eight inches wide and nine long. The aggregate of those made by the _United States_ almost equalled a single hole four feet square. The truth is, none of the figures of the defeated ones or of those who strive to explain away the figures which the defeated bring forward, are of more than trifling importance. If any one wants to know of how little importance was the difference between the long eighteen and the long twenty-four, let him consider whether a modern rifle of half the bore of either would not have been more serviceable, say than ten of either. It was not the size of a hole that a gun could make, but the number of holes that the crew behind it could make with it in an enemy. The crew of the _United States_ made more than one hundred holes in the British hulk and got but three in return. With this hard fact in mind, what must a candid student say was the relative efficiency of the two crews as naval seamen?