The cool and steady conduct of Mr. Walker, the Master, was very conspicuous during the battle; as also that of Lieutenants Wilson and Magill, of the marines.
“On being taken on board the enemy’s ship, I ceased to wonder at the result of the battle. The United States is built with the scantling of a 74 gun-ship, mounting thirty long 24-pounders (English ship guns) on her main-deck, and twenty-two 42-pounder carronades, with two long 24-pounders on her quarter-deck and forecastle, howitzer guns in her tops[1], and a travelling carronade on her upper-deck; with a complement of 478 picked men.
“The enemy has suffered much in masts, rigging, and hull, above and below water; her loss in killed and wounded I am not aware of, but I know a Lieutenant and 6 men have been thrown overboard[2].
- ↑ Eight-pounders, one in each top.
- ↑ “The loss of the United States is stated by Commodore Decatur at no more than 5 killed and 7 wounded. Among the latter is included, ‘Lieutenant Funk, who died four hours after the action.’ Mr. Clark (editor of a naval work published at Philadelphia, Jan. 3, 1814), also notices one of the seamen as having been mortally wounded; which coincides with Captain Carden’s statement, that a Lieutenant and 6 men had been thrown overboard. According to the proportions between the killed and wounded, the American slightly wounded cannot have been enumerated; a circumstance that receives confirmation from the fact, that the American officers, when questioned on the subject of their loss, told each a different story.“See James’s Nav. Occ. p. 158.
By reference to the minutes of the court-martial afterwards held on Captain Carden, &c., it will be seen that one of the Macedonian’s quarter-masters, an old British seaman, made oath, that he served his time with many of the United States’ crew, out of an English port; that his first cousin was one of the traitors, and that they had declared to him that the American ship had 18 persons slain in the action. Captain Carden, in a letter to Mr. James, dated May 17, 1824, and afterwards published in the Hampshire Telegraph, says, that the United States was pumped out every watch till her arrival in port, from the effect of shot received under water, and that two 18-pounders had passed through her main-mast in an horizontal line; he adds, “had such mast been the size only of the Macedonian’s, that is the same diameter, it would most probably have fallen early in the action, five of her main shrouds having been cut away by the Macedonian’s shot, on the side engaged.” In reply to Mr. James’s assertion, “that the British frigate bore down to the attack in a heedless and confident manner, and that the United States opened a fire from her long twenty-fours, almost every shot of which struck either the hull or the masts of the Macedonian,” (see Nav. Hist. v. 5, p. 304,) Captain Carden declares, that every shot of the enemy’s
