especially those of the lesser rates, were continually brought into
contact with such of the hostile vessels as had run through the
blockade, or were too small to be affected by it. French and Italian
frigates were often fought and captured when they were skirting
their own coasts, or had started off on a plundering cruise through
the Atlantic, or to the Indian Ocean; and though the Danes had lost
their larger ships they kept up a spirited warfare with brigs and
gun-boats. So the English marine was in constant exercise, attended
with almost invariable success.

Such was Great Britain's naval power when the Congress of the United
States declared war upon her. While she could number her thousand
sail, the American navy included but half a dozen frigates, and six
or eight sloops and brigs; and it is small matter for surprise that
the British officers should have regarded their new foe with
contemptuous indifference. Hitherto the American seamen had never
been heard of except in connection with two or three engagements
with French frigates, and some obscure skirmishes against the Moors
of Tripoli; none of which could possibly attract attention in the
years that saw Aboukir, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar. And yet these
same petty wars were the school which raised our marine to the
highest standard of excellence. A continuous course of victory, won
mainly by seamanship, had made the English sailor overweeningly
self-confident, and caused him to pay but little regard to manoeuvring
or even to gunnery. Meanwhile the American learned, by receiving
hard knocks, how to give them, and belonged to a service too young
to feel an over-confidence in itself. One side had let its training
relax, while the other had carried it to the highest possible point.
Hence our ships proved, on the whole, victorious in the apparently
unequal struggle, and the men who had conquered the best seamen of