been stated; I will give the complements shortly. The following is
the

COMPARATIVE FORCE AND LOSS.
Relative
Weight No. Relative Loss
Tons. Metal. Men. Loss. Force. Inflicted.
_Constitution_ 1576 654 475 34 100 100
_Java_ 1340 576 426 150 89 23

In hardly another action the war do the accounts of the respective
forces differ so widely; the official British letter makes their
total of men at the beginning of the action 377, of whom Commodore
Bainbridge officially reports that he paroled 378! The British
state their loss in killed and mortally wounded at 24; Commodore
Bainbridge reports that the dead alone amounted to nearly 60!
Usually I have taken each commander's account of his own force
and loss, and I should do so now if it were not that the British
accounts differ among themselves, and whenever they relate to the
Americans, are flatly contradicted by the affidavits of the latter's
officers. The British first handicap themselves by the statement
that the surgeon of the _Constitution_ was an Irishman and lately
an assistant surgeon in the British navy ("Naval Chronicle," xxix,
452); which draws from Surgeon Amos A. Evans a solemn statement in
the Boston _Gazette_ that he was born in Maryland and was never in
the British navy in his life. Then Surgeon Jones of the _Java_, in
his official report, after giving his own killed and mortally wounded
at 24, says that the Americans lost in all about 60, and that 4 of
their amputations perished under his own eyes; whereupon Surgeon
Evans makes the statement (_Niles' Register_, vi, p. 35), backed