force,
and of the expectations of his Government, which had made such great
exertions for an attainable and important object, that he should storm
the works and try. After a careful estimate of the strength of the two
squadrons, I think that a seaman would certainly say that in the open
the British was superior; but decidedly inferior for an attack upon
the American at anchor. This was the opinion of the surviving British
officers, under oath, and of Downie. General Izard, who had been in
command at Plattsburg up to a fortnight before the attack, wrote
afterwards to the Secretary of War, "I may venture to assert that
without the works, Fort Moreau and its dependencies, Captain
Macdonough would not have ventured to await the enemy's attack in
Plattsburg Bay, but would have retired to the upper part of Lake
Champlain."[419] The whole campaign turning upon naval control, the
situation was eminently one that called upon the army to drive the
enemy from his anchorage. The judgment of the author endorses the
words of Sir James Yeo: "There was not the least necessity for our
squadron giving the enemy such decided advantages by going into their
bay to engage them. Even had they been successful, it could not in the
least have assisted the troops in storming the batteries; whereas,
had our troops taken their batteries first, it would have obliged the
enemy's squadron to quit the bay and given ours a fair chance."[420]
At the Court Martial two witnesses, Lieutenant Drew of the "Linnet,"
and Brydone, master of the "Confiance," swore that after the action
Macdonough removed his squadron to Crab Island, out of range of the
batteries. Macdonough in his report does not mention this; nor was it
necessary that he should.

In short, though apparently so near, the two fractions of the American
force, the army and the navy, were actually in the dangerous military
condition of being exposed to be beaten in detail; and the destruction
of either would probably be fatal to the other. The largest two
British vessels, "Confiance" and "Linnet," were slightly inferior to
the American "Saratoga" and "Eagle" in aggregate weight of broadside;
but, like the "General Pike" on Ontario in 1813, the superiority of
the "Confiance" in long guns, and under one captain, would on the open
lake have made her practically equal to cope with the whole American
squadron, and still more with the "Saratoga" alone, assuming that the
"Linnet" gave the "Eagle" some occu