... The ablest
and bravest captains of the English fleet were ready to admit that a new
power was about to appear on the ocean, and that it was not improbable
the battle for the mastery of the seas would have to be fought over
again.
That the tone and discipline of the service were high, is true; but it
must be ascribed to moral, and not to physical, causes, to that aptitude
in the American character for the sea which has been so constantly
manifested, from the day the first pinnace sailed along the coast, on
the trading voyages of the seventeenth century, down to the present
moment.
Many false modes of accounting for the novel character that had been
given to naval battles were resorted to, and among other reasons, it was
affirmed that the American vessels of war sailed with crews of picked
seamen. That a nation which practiced impressment should imagine that
another in which enlistments were voluntary, could possess an advantage
of this nature, infers a strong disposition to listen to any means but
the right one to account for an unpleasant truth. It is not known that a
single vessel left the country, the case of the Constitution on her two
last cruises excepted, with a crew that could he deemed extraordinary
in this respect.
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