1812	Guerriere and Constitution	101

his gun, the remainder went where they had been ordered. This just left 244 men and 19 boys. Out of this number, the Guerrière had her second lieutenant (Henry Ready), 11 seamen, and three marines killed, her captain (severely), first lieutenant (Bartholomew Kent, slightly), master (Robert Scott), two master's mates (Samuel Grant and William John Snow), one midshipman (James Enslie), 43 seamen, 13 marines, and one boy wounded ; total, 15 killed and 63 wounded, six of the latter mortally, 39 severely, and 18 slightly. Out of her 468 men and boys, the Constitution, according to Captain Hull's statement, had one lieutenant of marines (William S. Bush) and six seamen killed, her first lieutenant (Charles Morris, dangerously), master (John C. Alwyn, slightly), four seamen (three of them dangerously), and one marine wounded ; total, seven killed and seven wounded. But several of the Guerrière's officers counted 13 wounded ; of whom three died after amputation. An equal number of killed and wounded, as stated in the American return, scarcely ever occurs, except in cases of explosion. In the British service, every wounded man, although merely scratched, reports himself to the surgeon, that he may get his smart-money, a pecuniary allowance so named. No such regulation exists in the American service ; consequently, the return of loss sustained in action by an American ship, as far as respects the wounded at least, is made subservient to the views of the commander and his government.

Although Captain Hull does not give his prize any guns at all, no other American account gives the Guerrière less than 49 guns. It is true that, besides the 48 guns already specified, the ship had an 18-pounder launch carronade, mounted upon the usual elevating carriage for firing at the tops ; but the priming iron, when put into the touch-hole just before the action commenced, broke short off and spiked the gun. In this state it was found by the captors. Consequently, as the two bow 18-pounders were equally useless, the Guerrière, out of her 49 guns, could employ in broadside only 23. We have already shown that the American 44-gun frigate, without making any use of her concealed gangway ports, could present 28 carriage-guns in broadside ; but the Constitution could, and did, as we now verily believe, present one gun more.* Of the fact of one of her two upperdeck 24-pounders being stationed on the forecastle and the other on the quarterdeck, we have not a doubt, from the following entry in the log of the Constitution when she was pursued by the British off New York, and was about to open a fire from her stern-chasers. " Got the forecastle gun aft." But the disparity in her action with the Guerrière is sufficiently great without adding this gun to the Constitution's broadside

* See p. 97.

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