the new flag was established. England, humiliated, tried to
attribute her multiplied reverses to the unusual size of the
vessels which Congress had had constructed in 1799, and which did
the fighting in 1812. She wished to refuse them the name of frigates,
and called them, not without some appearance of reason, disguised
line-of-battle ships. Since then all maritime powers have copied
these gigantic models, as the result of the war of 1812 obliged
England herself to change her naval material; but if they had
employed, instead of frigates, cut-down 74's (vaisseaux rases),
it would still be difficult to explain the prodigious success of
the Americans. * * *

"In an engagement which terminated in less than half an hour, the
English frigate _Guerriere_, completely dismasted, had fifteen men
killed, sixty-three wounded, and more than thirty shot below the
water-line. She sank twelve hours after the combat. The
_Constitution_, on the contrary, had but seven men killed and seven
wounded, and did not lose a mast. As soon as she had replaced a few
cut ropes and changed a few sails, she was in condition, even by
the testimony of the British historian, to take another _Guerriere_.
The _United States_ took an hour and a half to capture the
_Macedonian_, and the same difference made itself felt in the damage
suffered by the two ships. The _Macedonian_ had her masts shattered,
two of her main-deck and all her spar-deck guns disabled; more than
a hundred shot had penetrated the hull, and over a third of the
crew had suffered by the hostile fire. The American frigate, on the
contrary, had to regret but five men killed and seven wounded; her
guns had been fired each sixty-six times to the _Macedonian's_
thirty-six. The combat of the _Constitution_ and the _Java_ lasted
two hours, and was the most bloody of these three engagements. The