1815	Endymion and President	369

injury was done to the Endymion more than her own active crew replaced in less than an hour, still the President had " beaten " the Endymion. When Commodore Decatur was writing his official letter, he had been two days on board the Endymion, and had found time enough to discover, that her wounded men occupied " the starboard side of the gun-deck from the cabin bulkhead to the mainmast ; " and yet he had the hardihood to declare to his government and the world, that the Endymion, the ship he had so " beaten," was equal in force to the President.

On the 17th of April a court of inquiry was summoned at New-York, to investigate the circumstances under which the President had been captured. After what has already appeared in these pages on the subject of American courts of inquiry, after Captain Joseph Bainbridge could be honourably acquitted for the manner in which he gave up the Frolic, we cannot be surprised that the court should decree, that the " Endymion was subdued," that the " proposition to board her " was " heroic, " and that Commodore Decatur " evinced great judgment and skill, perfect coolness, the most determined resolution and heroic courage, " and so forth.

Although, by a sort of endemial tack at telling his own story, the commodore may have raised himself in the esteem of Americans, the manner in which he yielded up the President, coupled with the shifts and quirks, and the misrepresentations to which he afterwards resorted, have sunk the name of Decatur, in the opinion of every well-informed European, quite as low as that of Rodgers, Bainbridge, or Porter. The case of the Endymion and President has been compared with that of the Eurotas and Clorinde. * Both the French and the American frigate, it is true, were about equally battered in hull ; but there was this difference in the conduct of their commanders : Captain Denis-Lagarde, when he surrendered, had only his foremast standing ; whereas Commodore Decatur had all his three royal-masts an-end, and even the sails set upon them.

If we have been, or shall again be, a little more severe upon the Americans, generally, than accords with the impartial character of these pages, they have themselves, and themselves only, to thank. Have they not been trying to persuade the rest of the world, that their naval officers and seamen surpass all others ; that they are, in short, " invincible ? " Who has ever heard an American acknowledge, that any ship of his was taken by an equal force ? Where can an American be found, who will not persist in declaring, that an equal force captured the Guerriere, Macedonian, and Java, the Frolic, Peacock, and their sister-brigs ? One fact is remarkable. Where the Americans have met a decidedly superior force, or an equal force that

* See vol. iv., p. 60

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