was counterbalanced by the circumstance that the "President" had the
other vessels to take into account. From the legal point of view ships
merely in sight contribute, and are therefore entitled to prize money.
In the present instance they necessarily affected the manoeuvring and
gunnery of the "President."

There is a good deal of human nature, and some food for quiet
entertainment, in the British accounts. There were several to share,
and apparently the glory was not quite enough to go round. With
Admiral Hotham, not present in the action, but in immediate command of
the station during Cochrane's absence at New Orleans and Cockburn's in
Georgia, it was "the force which I had collected off the bar of New
York." Captain Hayes had much to say on his calculations of the
enemy's movements: "What is a little singular, at the very instant of
arriving at the point of the supposed track of the enemy, Sandy Hook
west-northwest fifteen leagues, we were made happy by the sight of a
ship and a brig, not more than two miles on the weather bow." The
published report of Captain Hope, of the "Endymion," is simple and
modest; but some of his followers apparently would have all the glory.
The "Endymion" had done the whole business. This drew forth the
publication of the "Pomone's" log, concerning which the Naval
Chronicle remarks, "It appears that some differences have taken place
between the British frigates engaged, as to the honor of having
captured the 'President.'"[467]

Had Decatur appreciated at the moment that his speedy surrender to the
"Pomone" would be attributed to the subjection to which the "Endymion"
was supposed to have reduced his ship, he very probably would have
made a second fight of it. But he was convinced that ultimate escape
was impossible. "Two fresh," though much weaker, ships of the enemy at
hand, his own having fought for two hours and a half; "about one fifth
of my crew killed and wounded, my ship crippled, and a more than
fourfold force opposed to me, without a chance of escape left, I
deemed it my duty to surrender." Physical and mental fatigue, the
moral discomfiture of a hopeless situation, are all fairly to be taken
into account; nor should resistance be protracted where it means
merely loss of life. Yet it may be questioned whether the moral tone
of a military service, which is its breath of life, does not suffer
when the attempt is made to invest with a halo of extraordinary
heroism such a resistanc