1812	Guerriere and Constitution	105

Having by the evening repaired her principal damages, including a few wounds in each of her three masts, the Constitution made sail from the spot of her achievement, and on the 30th anchored in the harbour of Boston. As may well be conceived, Captain Hull and his officers and crew were greeted with applause by them native and adopted countrymen. He and they also received, at a subsequent day, the thanks of the government, accompanied by a present of 50,000 dollars.

It is a singular fact, that in the letter published in the " National Intelligencer," as that transmitted by Captain Hull to his government, not a word appears respecting the force of the ship which the Constitution had captured. Captain Hull's letter is in this respect an anomaly of the kind. Perhaps, as the American newspapers had frequently stated, that the Constitution mounted 56 guns, and as dead ships, like dead men, " tell no tales," Captain Hull thought it better to leave his friends and countrymen to form their opinion, relative to the force and size of his prize, out of the following sentence : " So fine a ship as the Guerrière, commanded by an able and experienced officer." If Captain Hull did practise this ruse (and the men of Connecticut are proverbially shrewd), the effect, as we shall presently see, must almost have exceeded his hopes.

When the British says to an American officer, " Our frigates and yours are not a match, " the latter very properly replies " You did not think so once. " But what does this amount to ? Admitting that the force of the American 44-gun frigate was fully known before the Guerrière's action, but which was only partially the case ; and admitting that the British 38-gun frigate was considered able to fight her, all that can be said is, that many, who once thought otherwise, are now convinced, that an American and a British ship, in relative force as three to two, are not equally matched. The facts are the same : it is the opinion only that has changed. Man the Constitution with 470 Turks or Algerines ; and even then she would hardly be pronounced, now that her force is known, a match for the Guerrière. The truth is, the name " frigate " had imposed upon the public ; and to that, and that only, must be attributed the angry repinings of many of the British journalists at the capture of the Guerrière. They, sitting safe at their desks, would have sent her and every soul on board to the bottom, with colours flying, because her antagonist was " a frigate ; " whereas, had the Constitution been called " a 50-gun ship, " a defence only half as honourable as the Guerrière's would have gained for her officers and crew universal applause.

Captain Hull, and the officers and men of the Constitution, deserve much credit for what they did do ; first, for attacking a British frigate at all, and next, for conquering one a third inferior in force. It was not for them to reject the reward presented by the " Senate and house of representatives of the United States, "

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