And then consider once more that one hundred and nineteen were killed and wounded on the _Rota’s_ boats. How many men were there in each of her boats that she should have lost that number of killed and wounded in four? These boats carried carronades. By referring to the accounts of other battles of the kind (that at Craney’s Island, for instance, where James himself admits that there were seven hundred men in fifteen boats, or forty-six to the boat) we learn that an ordinary ship’s cutter would carry at least twenty-five men, and a long-boat or launch anywhere from forty men up to sixty or more. Recalling now that the Americans credit two of the _Rota’s_ boats with seventeen men escaping ashore by swimming, it is fair to suppose that part of them were unhurt. And if she had four boats to the _Plantagenet’s_ three, part of each of her other two also escaped. In short, if she lost one hundred and nineteen it is fair to suppose that twenty-one escaped unhurt--it is fair to suppose that she averaged at the very least thirty-five men to the boat. The candid Dabney says the boats were crowded with men. We are at liberty, in view of these facts, to doubt Allen’s statement that only one hundred and eighty men were in the seven boats. Because he omits to tell the loss of the _Plantagenet_, and because he deliberately omits to tell how many men the _Carnation_ had in the fight as well as how many she lost, we are compelled to believe that Allen deliberately understated the number of men in the boats he admits were sent. In short there is every good reason for supposing that when Consul Dabney wrote that “near four hundred men were in the boats when the attack commenced,” he was not only entirely sincere but reasonably accurate. If there were but thirty men to the boat there were three hundred and sixty in the entire flotilla of twelve, and that is “near four hundred.” Let any reader look up the stories of boat actions and then say whether even thirty-five is too large an estimate for the average number of men in a boat’s crew. Allen says that the “neutrality of the port having been violated by the American captain in firing on a boat from the _Plantagenet_,” an attack was planned. The consul says Reid fired only when four boats dashed at the Yankee schooner. In view of the omissions in the British account we would be justified in believing the candid consul rather than Allen, but here, fortunately, we have the testimony of the enemy to prove that they were the aggressors, for not only did the British admit to the Portuguese that the British ships had violated the neutrality of Fayal; they made an ample apology and _they paid for damages done_.