thusiasm, and his statesmanlike judgment. His appearance in person before a committee of Congress in 1886 was a great historical event of the triumphant war for the rights of the intellect before the law. Unlike other and younger literary men, it was not necessary for him to spend laborious and continuous days, weeks, or months in the conflict. Such was the power of his name, and the trenchancy of his occasional blows, such

the cumulative impulse of his fame and abilities, that his work, though done with apparent ease, was great and effective.

And now this immense intellectual and moral force is with us only as a memory and a record. Yet for many a day and year the name and words of Lowell will light the path of the republic of which he was the lover and laureate.

"Laurels of the American Tar in 1812."

I. CRITICISM BY MR. POWELL.

HE article written by Edgar S. Maclay on the "Lau

points are carefully attended to in all regular services. How could one ship supply another with guns or shot if they did not exactly match the regulations?

4. Mr. Maclay, again, has not mentioned the respec

in THE CENTURY for December last is well written and well illustrated, but contains several statements needing correction.

1. It fails to set forth the great difference in size, 40 to 50 per cent., which prevailed between the combatants in most of the actions. For instance, the American 44-gun frigates which severally captured three British 38-gun frigates in single fight were each superior in size to their adversaries. The "load displacement" of the Constitution is always stated in American navy lists at 2200 tons, but the load displacement of British 38's was only about 1500 tons. As to the "tons burden" there is a large mistake in that entered to the English frigates in Emmons's "History of the United States Navy." It is almost ludicrous to compare the action of the Levant and the Cyane with the Constitution as at all between equal forces. The two small British ships only averaged 500 tons burden each, and the American over 1500; the short carronades of the former were nearly useless against the heavy long guns of their opponent.1 2. The statement that English shot always were of full weight, and American generally seven per cent. under weight, is more than doubtful. Simmons in Heavy Ordnance, 1837, states that English shot were under the nominal weight, and Colonel Owen, Professor of Artillery to Woolwich College, gives tables showing that when the shot, long after the war of 1812, had been rather increased in size, they were still below weight, so that an eighteen-pound ball weighed, even then, only seventeen pounds and eleven ounces. Sir Howard Douglas in Naval Gunnery" remarks that the English cannon had more windage than the French and American; hence the ball would be rather smaller. 3. It is exceedingly improbable that the Guerrière in 1812 would have on board French guns and shot since her capture so long before as 1806. The utmost precision and uniformity in the naval and military services is necessary for supply and mutual exchange and support with cannon, shot, ammunition, etc., and those

66

The official records of the English Admiralty and of the French Marine have clear evidence of the exact size of their 38and 40-gun frigates at the commencement of this century; the large national collections of naval models in London and in Paris agree with these records, and the scientific works of both countries on naval architecture support the same facts. Adding the historical works of James and Brenton, we get an accumulation of evidence which must be absolutely conclusive to unbiased minds. Thus all this evidence has the remarkable quality of entire agreement as to the dimensions of the frigates, which are

had 470 men; the British 38's had but 300 regular complement, all told; as often less as more. He is mistaken in giving the Chesapeake only 340; Admiral Preble, U. S. N., writing in the American magazine “United Service," acknowledges she had 390, but he overrates the crew of the Shannon. The total number of persons on board the Shannon of every grade was 330, and there is no mystery how it was composed, namely 300 full complement, 8 lent by her consort, and 22 Irish laborers or passengers only just pressed out of a merchant ship. Owing to Captain Broke's being wounded and temporarily unable to attend to business, his friends wrote the official report for him, and unfortunately were not sufficiently precise in their inquiries; but the report, notwithstanding, is abundantly correct for all practical purposes, the errors being of no importance. It is alleged by James that the Chesapeake, far from having a "scratch crew," retained on board the greater part of the men that had served the two years on her previous voyage, and the officers were most fastidious in picking out none but the best men to fill up with. See, in Mr. Maclay's own article, his reference to "picked seamen," page 207. It seems unlikely that when sailing out to meet the Shannon the men would dare to annoy Captain Lawrence with an ill-timed application for the prize money of the previous cruise, unless the spokesman at all events represented a large proportion of the complement. Out of the Shannon's “52 guns" four were mere boat guns or exercising pieces, and two of those fitted as stern-chasers were not once fired in the action.

5. The artist has taken poetical license in depicting the American ships as rather smaller than the British instead of much larger; the Constitution is drawn with three or four ports on the quarter-deck instead of eight or nine.

6. I refuse to believe that the Constitution in two or three hours' close action with the Java was hulled only four times. The official report allows 34 killed and given as varying from 150 to 155 feet long and most nearly 40 feet or 12 meters in extreme breadth. Some recent transatlantic writers make the length more by measuring in the projection of the counter; but that is contrary to rule. Any one who really understands the subject of tonnage is invited to explain how such dimensions could possibly give a total of much more than 1100 tons Congress measure or 1030 Philadelphia measure But the American frigates by the former rule, being of 1576 tons, were 43 per cent. larger than British or French-H. Y. P.

wounded, and the British account says many more. Professor Frost in his history of the United States Navy says the shattered and decayed state of the Constitution required her return to port." What does "shattered" mean? By the way, Fenimore Cooper remarks that Captain Hull wrote two reports of the action with the Guerrière, and suggests the other should be published also. Why not?

I shall not attempt to deny that the British in 1812, after twenty years of victories, had become careless and over-confident, while the Americans exhibited much efficiency in profiting by prearranged superiority of force, a superiority more generally confessed now than at the time of the war itself.

Not wishing to occupy too much of your space, I will only refer readers who wish for further evidence to the "Illustrated Naval and Military Magazine," London, for September, 1890; to the "Army and Navy Journal," New York, during the autumn of 1889; to the new appendices to the last edition of James's "Naval History," 1886, Volume VI, and to Colburn's "United Service Magazine," London, of April, 1885. LONDON, January, 1891.

11. MR. MACLAY'S REJOINder.

H. Y. Powell.

IN answer to H. Y. Powell's criticism on my article I will say in brief (referring to his numbered paragraphs):

1. The "load displacement" is not a fair comparison because the American frigates were more heavily built, had heavier stanchions, thicker masts, heavier armaments, etc., all of which, of course, made a greater 'load displacement," but does not show that there was "40 to 50 per cent." difference in size. I call Mr. Powell's attention to an article written by himself in the September (1890) number of the "Illustrated Naval and Military Magazine" of London, in which he says that the American 44-gun frigates were about 175 feet long and 45 feet beam while the British 38-gun frigate of the war of 1812 was 155 feet length and 40.3 feet beam. This certainly is not the " 40 to 50 per cent.' difference in size which Mr. Powell speaks of. But according to American accounts the Constitution was only 12 feet longer and had a trifle more beam than the Guerrière. I frankly admitted in my article that the American frigates were much better, perhaps " 40 to 50 per cent. " better, if Mr. Powell chooses, but I do not admit that difference in size as commonly understood. I also call Mr. Powell's attention to Captain Dacres's opinion of the relative force of the two frigates, and I think Mr. Powell will admit that Captain Dacres is something of an authority on the subject, as he commanded the Guerrière when captured by the Constitution, and afterward was many days in the latter frigate, thereby having a better opportunity than either myself or Mr. Powell could ever have of judging the two ships. I think also Mr. Powell will admit that Captain Dacres had far more interest in discovering a to 50 per cent." difference between the two frigates, if such difference existed, than either Mr. Powell or myself. That before this engagement Captain Dacres considered the Guerrière of sufficient size to capture the Constitution is seen in the following challenge:

40

Captain Dacres, commander of His Britannic Majesty's frigate Guerrière, presents his compliments to Comman

der Rogers of the United States frigate President [sister ship to the Constitution], and will be very happy to meet him, or any other American frigate of equal force to the President, off Sandy Hook, for the purpose of having a social tête-à-tête.

British commanders were fully aware of the size of American 44-gun frigates at the time of this challenge. That up to the time of this action Captain Dacres had not changed this opinion is seen in the following: On the 10th of August, or nine days before the engagement, the Guerrière captured the American brig Betsey commanded by Mr. Orne. Mr. Orne was aboard the Guerrière when that frigate met the Constitution, and relates: "I soon saw from the peculiarity of her [Constitution's] sails and from her general appearance that she was, without doubt, an American frigate, and communicated the same to Captain Dacres. He immediately replied that he thought she came down too boldly for an American, but soon after added, 'The better he behaves, the more honor we shall gain by taking him."" (See Coggeshall's "History of American Privateers.")

Even after the action, when Captain Dacres and his officers had been several days in the Constitution, thus having an excellent opportunity of comparing the two ships, he still entertained the same views, and immediately on landing wrote that "the loss of the ship is to be ascribed to the early fall of her mizzen-mast." (See Official Report of Captain Dacres.)

This opinion is still more forcibly stated by Captain Dacres several months after the event. In his defense before his courtmartial he 66 says: Notwithstanding in the exertions of the officers and men who belong to the unlucky issue of this affair, such confidence have I the Guerrière, and I am so well aware that the success of my opponent was owing to fortune, that it is my earnest wish, and would be the happiest moment of my life, to be once more opposed to the Constitution with them under my command, in a frigate of similar force to the Guerrière."

Such is the opinion of Captain Dacres in reference to the comparative size of the Constitution and Guerrière, expressed after having had unsurpassed opportunities for inspecting both ships, and uttered after mature deliberation. Neither he nor any of the frigate commanders of this war claimed that the American frigates they fought were " 40 to 50 per cent." larger; such claims being the work of Mr. James, whom Mr.

Powell seems to follow.

2. As to this point I do not see that any answer is needed. In my article I gave three or four authorities, both English and American, which were contempor

aneous with the battles in which the ammunition was used. Mr. Powell refers to an authority in 1837, and to Sir Howard Douglas, who was later yet. What happened to the shot in 1837 or later I in no way discussed. I treated of shot in the war of 1812 only, so that Mr. Powell's two rather post-bellum authorities do not affect my argument in the least.

3. As to this point I dealt in facts and gave my authorities in the article. An officer actually weighed the Guerrière's shot, and that is better evidence than probabilities or improbabilities.

4. I showed in my article that the American crews were superior, both in numbers and quality. I do not see that I am mistaken in giving the Chesapeake 340 men. My authority is official, being none less than

Emmons's "Statistical History of the United States Navy," p. 66. This is the United States Government record of the navy. The same number is given by all recognized naval historians. Admiral Preble never pretended to be an authority on the war of 1812. What he wrote in some magazine article is liable to error, and, as regards the crew of the Chesapeake, is in disagreement with all the naval authorities of that period.

I have in no place said that Captain Broke's forged official report was not " abundantly correct." My point was to prove that at least one letter was an absolute forgery. This I did. This—taken in connection with the fact that there are other official letters which the Admiralty refused me the privilege of inspecting, and which are said even by British writers to be "garbled" so as to reduce the humiliation of British defeat forms evidence amounting almost to proof that official reports of other British commanders have been so garbled as to detract from the American victory, and affords us ample ground for questioning some of their figures.

"Picked seamen" in my article referred to the earlier part of this war. It is a well-known fact that by June, 1813, many American privateers and seamen had been captured by the British, and as the Admiralty refused to exchange prisoners (thereby hoping to check American enterprise on the sea) seamen became very scarce. My authorities for saying so are Washington Irving, Cooper, and Niles's Register, besides others. On the 45th page, Volume II, "Spanish Papers," Washington Irving says: It was only with great difficulty that any men could be induced to enlist in her [the Chesapeake].”

As to its being "unlikely" that the Chesapeake's crew should" dare to annoy Captain Lawrence with an ill-timed application for money," Washington Irving and the Rev. Dr. Brighton, the English biographer of Captain Broke of the Shannon, say that the crew mutinied, and "that a scoundrel Portuguese who was boatswain's mate demanded prize checks for the men" (Irving's "Spanish Papers," Vol. II, p. 47; also Brighton's "Memoirs of Admiral Broke," p. 165).

My authority for placing the Shannon's guns at 52 is none other than James (Vol. VI, p. 53), who says she carried" 28 long 18-pounders, 4 long 9-pounders, I long 6-pounder, 16 short 32-pounders, and 3 short 12pounders.' And in this I will observe that James has departed from the figures in the official report of Captain Broke, which gives the Shannon only 49 guns. James says: " The Shannon certainly mounted 52 carriage guns," and "mounted" does not mean placed in a boat where they could not be used, had that side of the ship been engaged. As for the guns that were not "once fired" the Chesapeake had a whole broadside she did not fire; so did the Shannon, but that does not show that she did not carry those guns.

5. I do not see that Mr. Davidson, the artist, has taken any “poetical license." The only picture where two frigates are fully compared is that of the United States and Macedonian. Here the Macedonian is made higher out of the water because she, being relieved of the weight of masts and spars, and the consequent heeling over from pressure of sails, naturally would look higher. In this Mr. Davidson has discovered great skill.

The Constitution carried from ten to twelve guns on her quarter-deck, which required six ports at the most to a side; not" eight or nine," as Mr. Powell says.

6. I regret Mr. Powell refuses to believe that the Constitution was hulled only four times by the Java. Such, however, was the case. The best of the matter is, the British commanders at that time were so confident of capturing all American frigates that they took especial pains not to fire into the hull, but directed all their shot at the rigging so as to prevent the Americans from being able to make sail in escape. They did not wish to injure the hull as it would only be so much more damage for them to repair after the capture.

Professor John Frost wrote a "Book of the Navy,” but I have never before known him to be quoted as an authority. I also must confess that I do not know why Captain Hull's second report was not published.

Edgar S. Maclay.

III. COMMENTS ON MR. MACLAY'S REJOINDER. DISPLACEMENT is indeed a fair comparison between ships of the same general description, and is now adopted by naval architects, officers, and government officials in every nation. The American 44's exceeded the British 38's by more than 7 per cent., nearer 12 per cent. linear dimensions (or as 174 to 154 in length), in fact more in depth, and consequently at least 40 per cent. in cubical bulk.

The complements of men afford a test of size, 470 to 300 all told.

I consider my evidence is good that English shot were most generally underweight as well as American. I have a letter from the Manager of the Carson Co., which cast shot and cannon in the war time. Sir H. Douglas's authoritative work on “Naval Gunnery" gives the exact size of English shot in 1815, and we find that after being enlarged in 1837 they still weighed rather less than nominal weight.

About the Guerrière's guns I read Fenimore Cooper to mean that perhaps they were French, retained on board the six years. He often guardedly writes “it is said."

As the American navy consisted of so very few vessels in 1813 I see no reason to think there was the least difficulty in getting first-class seamen for the Chesapeake-James says boat-loads were refused. Truly the Chesapeake had a whole broadside that was never once fired in the engagement, but the same remark applies to the Shannon. Each vessel fired twenty-five guns of a side, the Shannon a trifle less weight of shot. The Chesapeake was pierced for fifty-four guns, besides chasers, according to a model, carefully made to scale, on view to this day at Greenwich (Hospital) College. There is a similar model of the President, also of the Macedonian class of frigate, etc.

I think (without referring) that Theodore Roosevelt allows the Java fought chiefly at rather close quarters, certainly well within range of musketry. I do not believe that she fired intentionally high, but inefficiently, from having a raw crew not trained in gunnery; most likely many shots went in the water as well as in the air. Still thirty-four men were killed or wounded on board the Constitution, and it is not likely many of them were aloft.

H. Y. Powell.

IV. "DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP!"

William J. Swift, M.D.

Mr. Kennan's Reply to Certain Criticisms. [WE presume upon the intense and continued interest in Mr. Kennan's Siberian papers which many of our readers have manifested, to make the following extracts from the preface of his forthcoming volume.-ED. C. M.]

Some of the criticisms that have been made upon the articles on Siberia and the exile system published in THE CENTURY MAGAZINE have been based apparently upon the assumption that a survey of any one particular department of national life must necessarily be incomplete and misleading, and that the fair-minded investigator should supplement it by taking into the field of vision a quantity of unrelated facts and phenomena from a dozen other departments.

"Your articles," certain critics have said, " give a false impression. Your statements with regard to Russian prisons, indiscriminate arrests, and the banishment of hundreds of people to Siberia without trial may all be true; but there are in Russia, nevertheless, thousands of peaceful, happy homes, where fathers and brothers are no more in danger of being arrested and exiled to

Siberia than they would be if they lived in the United States. Russia is not a vast prison inhabited only by suspects, convicts, and jailers; it is full of cultivated, refined, kind-hearted people; and its Emperor, who is the embodiment of all the domestic virtues, has no higher aim in life than to promote the happiness and prosperity of his beloved subjects."

The obvious reply to such criticism as this is that it wholly mistakes the aim and scope of the work criticized. I did not go to Russia to observe happy homes, nor to make the acquaintance of congenial, kind-hearted people, nor to admire the domestic virtues of the Tsar. I went to Russia to study the working of a penal system, to make the acquaintance of exiles, outcasts, and criminals, and to ascertain how the Government treats its enemies in the prisons and mines of Eastern Siberia. Granted, for the sake of argument, that there are thousands of happy homes in Russia; that the Empire does abound in cultivated and kind-hearted people, and that what have these facts to do with the sanitary condition of the Tsar is devotedly attached to his wife and children; a tumble-down étape in the province of Yakútsk, or with the flogging to death of a young and educated woman at the mines of Kará? The balancing of a happy and kind-hearted family in St. Petersburg against an epidemic of typhus fever in the exile forwarding-prison at Tomsk is not an evidence of fairness and impartiality, but rather an evidence of an illogical mind. All that fairness and impartiality require of the investigator in any particular field is that he shall set forth, conscientiously, in due relative proportion and without prejudice, all the significant facts that he has been able to gather in that selected field, and then that he shall draw from the collected facts such conclusions as they may seem to warrant. His work may not have the scope of an encyclopedia, but there is no reason, in the nature of things, why it should not be full, accurate, and trustworthy as far as it goes. An investigation of the Indian question in the United States would necessarily deal with a very small part of the varied and complex life of the nation; but it might, nevertheless, be made as fair and complete, within its limits, as Bryce's "American Commonwealth." It would, perhaps, present a dark picture; but to attempt to lighten it by showing that the President of the republic is a moral man and good to his children, or that there are thousands of happy families in New York that have not been driven from their homes by goldseekers, or that the dwellers on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston arerefined and cultivated people who have never made a practice of selling intoxicating liquor to minors, would be not only illogical but absurd. If the gloominess of the picture is to be relieved, the proper way to relieve it is to show what has been done to remedy the evils that make it gloomy, and not by any means to prove that in some other part of the country, under wholly different conditions, a picture might be drawn that would be cheerful and inspiriting.

In the present work I have tried to present impartially both sides of every disputed question, and to deal as fairly as possible both with the Government and with the exiles.

George Kennan.

Will judge as never judges man. Do not sigh,

Do not cry;

All will come right by and by.

Nelly Marshall McAfee.

The Poet Paradox.

YOUNG X is overcome with deep dejection;
This paradox hath filled his soul with gall:
For him the public has no predilection,
And though well-read he is not read at all.
John Kendrick Bangs.

"Deserving Poor."

DIVES and I on crowded street
An aged beggar chanced to meet;
Dives passed by with sterile frown,
And said, to argue conscience down:
"I treat all such with rule unswerving.
How can one know when they 're deserving?”
"You 're right," I cried, with nodding head
(I toil for Dives for my bread);

But since the mind is heaven-born,
And earthly fetters holds in scorn,

I thought, "That wretch and many more
Starve through those words, 'Deserving poor.'"

And then, because I haply knew
How Dives rich and richer grew,

I sneered (in thought), "Such careful alms,
Such nice, discriminating qualms,
Should be observed in rule unswerving
But by the rich who are deserving."

George Horton.

To the River St. Lawrence in Autumn.
THE fire that frosts engender
(O happy, happy red!)

Fills with their autumn splendor
The groves about thy bed.

No king with crowned head

Is royaller than thee,
O mighty, mighty river,
Impatient for the sea.

The maples are thy tiar

Great rubies framed in gold;
The cherry, oak, and briar
In crimson robes infold
The monarch blithe and bold;
And o'er thy dancing helm
The sumach's purple feather
Shines gaily through thy realm.
With laughter wild are panting
The waves upon thy breast;
October gales are chanting
The dead leaves to their rest;
The sun is flying west,

O monarch, soon to lie

In Winter's hard, white fetters
Till Spring comes riding by.

Douglas Sladen.

Written October, 1890, at St. Anne's, P. Q., where Tom

Moore wrote his "Canadian Boat-song."