success so illustrious as to seem almost incredible. It
is more dignified to refrain from extolling our own exploits and to
recall the effects of these sea duels upon the minds of the people, the
statesmen, and the press of the England of that period. Their outbursts
of wrathful humiliation were those of a maritime race which cared little
or nothing about the course of the American war by land. Theirs was the
salty tradition, virile and perpetual, which a century later and in a
friendlier guise was to create a Grand Fleet which should keep watch and
ward in the misty Orkneys and hold the Seven Seas safe against the
naval power of Imperial Germany. Then, as now, the English nation
believed that its armed ships were its salvation.

It is easier to understand, bearing this in mind, why after the fight of
the _Guerriere_ the London _Times_ indulged in such frenzied
lamentations as these:

We witnessed the gloom which that event cast over high and
honorable minds.... Never before in the history of the world did an
English frigate strike to an American, and though we cannot say
that Captain Dacres, under all circumstances, is punishable for
this act, yet we do say there are commanders in the English navy
who would a thousand times rather have gone down with their colors
flying than to have set their fellow sailors so fatal an example.

Good God! that a few short months should have so altered the tone
of British sentiments! Is it true, or is it not, that our navy was
accustomed to hold the Americans in utter contempt? Is it true, or
is it not, that the _Guerriere_ sailed up and down the American
coast with her name painted in large characters on her sails in
boyish defiance of Commodore Rodgers? Would any captain, however
young, have indulged such a foolish piece of vain-boasting if he
had not been carried forward by the almost unanimous feeling of his
associates?

We have since sent out more line-of-battle ships and heavier
frigates. Surely we must now mean to smother the American navy. A
very short time before the capture of the _Guerriere_ an American
frigate was an object of ridicule to our honest tars. Now the
prejudice is actually setting the other way and great pains seems
to be taken by the friends of ministers to prepare the public for
the surrender of a British seventy-four to an opponent lately so