1812     FROLIC AND WASP     109

concluding passage of that address is in the following words: " Notwithstanding the unlucky issue of this affair, such confidence have I in the exertions of the officers and men who belonged to 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 period 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. "

That the captain of the Guerrière should have expressed such an opinion on such an occasion is allowable enough ; but we are surprised to find that opinion seconded by the captain of the Spartan, a frigate of the same force as the Guerrière, a frigate which the Constitution herself had just come from seeking when she fell in with the latter. " Thus far, " says Captain Brenton, " the two ships had fought with an equal chance of success, when the day was decided by one of those accidents to which ships of war are ever liable, and which can be rarely guarded against. " * He then describes the fall of the Guerrière's mizenmast. We are stopped, however, in the comments we were going to make, by observing, at the conclusion of the account of the Guerrière's capture, the following paragraph, whether in confirmation or contradiction of the former passage, let others decide: " The inference is erroneous (that our navy was declining and our officers and men deficient in their duty), founded on a supposition, that, if two ships happen to be called frigates, the lesser one, being manned and commanded by Englishmen, ought to take the greater, though a ship very nearly double her force, in size, guns, and men : we need scarcely enter into any argument to prove the fallacy of such an expectation." *

On the 12th of September the British 18-gun brig-sloop Frolic, Captain Thomas Whinyates, quitted the bay of Honduras, with about 14 sail of merchantmen under convoy, for England. On arriving off Havana, the master of a Guernsey ship informed Captain Whinyates of the war with America, and of the Guerrière's capture. Having been five years in the West Indies, and being very sickly in her crew, the Frolic was by no means in a fit state to encounter an enemy's vessel of a similar class to herself. However, there was no alternative ; and the brig proceeded on her voyage along the coast of the United States.

On the night of the 16th of October, in latitude 36° north, longitude 64° west, a violent gale of wind came on, which separated the Frolic from her convoy, carried away her main yard, sprung the main topmast, and tore both topsails to pieces. By dark on the evening of the 17th, six of the missing ships had joined ; and on the 18th, at daybreak, while the Frolic, in a very turbulent sea, was repairing her damages, a sail hove in sight to windward, which was at first taken for one of the convoy. But

* Brenton, Vol. v., p. 50. † Ibid., p. 54.

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