tier still remained unpierced.

[Pageheading: _AMERICAN SUCCESSES AT SEA._]

The glory of the British military successes was unfortunately obscured
in large measure by American successes on the sea. The maritime war
resolved itself into a series of fights between individual frigates.
This was the necessary result of the nature of the British force kept in
American waters. Ever since the renewal of hostilities with France in
1803 a species of blockade had been maintained along the coast of the
United States by British vessels on the watch for deserters or
contraband of war. It was also found necessary to employ ships of war
to guard against pirates in the West Indies and to protect British
commerce in that quarter against French privateers. For all these
purposes speed was of more importance than strength, and the British
force in the west contained a disproportionate number of smaller vessels
as compared with line of battle ships. The actual numbers of British
warships in North American waters at the beginning of 1812 were three
ships of the line, twenty-one cruisers and frigates, and fifty-three
small craft. The United States navy was still weaker, and amounted
merely to seven efficient frigates and nine small craft.[57] There was
no question of a contest between fleets, and though the numbers of the
British warships enabled them to destroy American trade, they were ship
for ship inferior to the American frigates, which were thus enabled to
win an empty glory in single-ship encounters. The American frigates
were, in fact, superior in every respect to the British ships which
nominally belonged to the same class. They were larger and more strongly
built, a frigate being as strong as a British seventy-four. Their crews
were more numerous, and were recruited entirely from seamen, about
one-third of whom would appear to have been of British nationality,
while, as has been seen, many of them had been decoyed from British
war-vessels by offers of higher pay. The British ships on the other hand
were manned largely by landsmen, often impressed from the jails. A false
economy had induced the British admiralty to impose narrow limits on the
use of ammunition for gunnery practice. The Americans on the other hand
were very liberal in this respect, with the result that in the early
years of the war they were greatly superior to their enemies in point of
marksmanship.

A good example of the disproportion between the British and Ame