112     LIGHT SQUADRONS AND SINGLE SHIPS     1812

The Frolic was armed like every other vessel of her class, with 16 carronades, 32-pounders, and two long sixes. The brig had also the established 12-pounder carronade for her launch, mounted on the usual elevating carriage ; and she had likewise on board a second 12-pounder carronade, taken out of some prize probably, but it was dismounted and lashed upon the forecastle. As the boat carronade, when used at all in action, can only be fired en barbette, we shall not consider it as worthy a place among the broadside-guns. The Wasp mounted 16 carronades, 32-pounders, and two brass long 12-pounders, exclusively of two brass 4-pounders, one of which was usually mounted in the fore, and the other in the main top ; but, in consequence of the gale, they had been brought on deck. Although, strictly speaking, there was not a single boy belonging to the Wasp, we shall allow three, The following, therefore, will be the

With her masts entire, and a healthy instead of a debilitated crew, the Frolic would have encountered a tolerably equal opponent. As the matter stood, her officers and men deserve great credit for maintaining a resistance so long after their vessel had become unmanageable and defenceless. Surely, there was nothing in the result of this action, that could cast the slightest slur upon the British naval character; and yet, with the wonted exaggerations of American officers, the latter made it, as we shall see presently, a victory over a superior force.

Captain Jones, however, was not allowed to carry his trophy, his " 22-gun sloop of war, " into port ; for, in the course of a few hours after the action, the British 74-gun ship Poictiers, Captain John Poer Beresford, heaving in sight, captured one vessel and recaptured the other. With a just appreciation of the merits of Captain Whinyates, Captain Beresford continued him in the command of the Frolic. At the court-martial which was subsequently held upon the captain, officers, and crew of the Frolic, for the loss of their vessel, they were, as a matter of course, most honourably acquitted. Captain Whinyates, although he was unacquainted with the circumstance, had been made a post-captain since the 12th of the preceding August.

A word or two upon the American official account of this action. Captain Jacob Jones describes the vessel he captured, as " the British sloop of war Frolic, of 22 guns, 16 of them 32-pound carronades, and four 12-pounders on the main deck, and two 12

* See p. 102.

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