78     LIGHT SQUADRONS AND SINGLE SHIPS     1812

confusion into which they had been thrown by the smart and destructive fire of their antagonist, may be seen in the Southampton's loss ; which, out of a crew of 212 men and boys, amounted to only one seaman killed, and a midshipman and nine seamen and marines wounded. On the other hand, the Améthyste. out of a crew of 700 men (Frenchmen, Americans, Haytians, a motley group of almost every nation), had 105 killed and 120 wounded, including among the latter her captain, M. Gaspard. The whole of the surviving crew, except about 20 men, were landed at Maraguana, Petite-Goäve, and Port-au-Prince ; and the frigate, under jury-masts, fitted to her while she lay in Port-au-Prince, proceeded, in company with the Southampton to Port-Royal, Jamaica. On a subsequent day the Améthyste was restored to Christophe ; and the conduct of Sir James Yeo, in all he had done, was approved by his commander-in-chief.

When the belligerents of Europe, opposed to England, had their commerce swept from the ocean by the armed ships of the latter ; when there was every probability that Buonaparte would soon be compelled to curb his ambitious temper and restore to Europe the blessings of peace, neutral America stepped forward, and hired herself to be the carrier between the colony and the parent-state. The consequence in a little time was, that although not a single merchant vessel belonging to France or to Holland crossed the Atlantic or doubled the Cape of Good Hope, the products of the western and the eastern world sold cheaper in their markets than they did in those of England, who sent her ships wheresoever she pleased. Thus relieved, France pushed on the war with vigour, and neutral America prospered by fanning the flames. This moral and religious people actually grew rich and great, commercially great at least, out of that which depopulated Europe, which robbed the wife of her husband, and the child of its father.

Every citizen of every town in the United States, to which a creek leads that can float a canoe, becomes henceforward a " merchant ; " and the grower of wheat or tobacco sends his son to the counting-house, that he may be initiated in the profitable art of falsifying ships' papers and covering belligerent property. Here the young American learns to bolt custom-house oaths by the dozen, and to condemn a lie only when clumsily told, or when timorously or inadequately applied. After a few years of probation, he is sent on board a vessel as mate or supercargo ; and, in due time, besides fabricating fraudulent papers and swearing to their genuineness, he learns (using a homely phrase) to humbug British officers, and to decoy, and make American citizens of, British seamen. The merchant's hope of gain, in these trips to and from the port of one belligerent, resting mainly on a quick passage and a careful avoidance of the cruisers belonging to the other, the American vessel is constructed and

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