hit, which
would so cripple the enemy as to permit the _Macedonian_, if no more
could be done, to bear off with honor. But the fortune of war was
adverse. Every shot told with deadly and destructive effect upon the
_Macedonian_, and even yet, with nearly a hundred shots in her hull,
her lower guns under water, in a tempestuous sea, and a third of her
crew either killed or wounded, Captain Carden fought his ship. To
"conquer or die," was his motto, and the motto of a brave crew, some of
whom even stood on deck, after having paid a visit to the cockpit, and
submitted to the amputation of an arm, grinning defiance, and anxious
to be permitted the chance of boarding with their fellows, when Captain
Carden called up his boarders as a _dernier resort_. But boarding was
rendered impossible, as the fore brace was shot away, and the yard
swinging round, the vessel was thrown upon the wind. The _United
States_ made sail ahead and the crew of the _Macedonian_ fancying that
she was taking her leave cheered lustily. They were not long deceived.
Having refilled her cartridges, the _United States_, at a convenient
distance, stood across the bows of her disabled antagonist, and soon
compelled her to strike. While the _Macedonian_ had thirty-six killed
and sixty-eight wounded, the _United States_ had only five killed and
seven _hors de combat_.

It was such advantages as these that induced the Americans to continue
the war. The Americans were inflated with pride. In their own
estimation they had become a first rate maritime power, and even in the
eyes of Europe, it seemed that they were destined to become so. The
disparity in force was justly less considered than the result. However
bravely the British commanders had fought their ships, the disasters
were no less distressing, politically considered, than if they had been
the result of positive weakness or of lamentable cowardice. These
advantages even compensated in glory to the Northeastern States for the
losses which their commerce had sustained, and would, had they
continued very much longer, have stimulated them to forget their
selfishness, their bankruptcies, and their privations, though perhaps
they tended on the other hand, to cause less vigorous efforts to be
made for the acquisition of Canada, than otherwise would have been the
case, by rivetting the public attention of America more on the
successful operations by sea than on their own disastrous operations by
land. There was