1813	British and American Navies	148

determined to build ships from the draught of the Endymion, and to bring the 13 maindeck ports as much closer as would admit a 14th to be added. This was done ; and in a short time appeared the Forth, Liffey, Severn, Glasgow, and Liverpool. The three first were built of fir, and the two last of pitch-pine ; and the force of the class was 28 long 24-pounders on the main deck, and 20 carronades, 32-pounders, and two long nines, on the quarterdeck and forecastle, total 50 guns ; with a complement of 350 men and boys. The chief complaint against these frigates was, as may he conjectured, that their quarters were rather confined. A class like the Egyptienne, mounting the same number and nature of guns as the Forth's class, with a crew of 420 good men, would have been quite as heavy a frigate as the British, with a due regard to their established character on the ocean, ought to have constructed, if they constructed any at all, to meet the large American frigates.

But the rage for frigate-building in this year did not stop at the Endymion's class. As many as 26 of the two principal 18-pounder classes were ordered to be built, chiefly, for expedition-sake and to save expense, of the red and yellow pine. Some of these, too, were to be fitted with medium 24-pounders instead of their long 18s, and were to have a complement of 330 men and boys. The six and a half feet, 33 cwt. 24-pounder, or Gover's gun, not having been found heavy enough to fire two shot, some guns of the same caliber were constructed, from a foot to a foot and a half longer, and weighing from 40 to 43 cwt. One description of these guns was found fully to answer; and we shall by and by have more to say of them. As it turned out, no shot fired from a long or a medium 24-pounder, except in the single instance of a British ship which had been in the service since the year 1797, struck or fell on board an American frigate. The promulgated intention, to arm British frigates with such guns, was quite enough to inspire the Americans with caution ; and accordingly the Java was the last British frigate they captured or brought to action, but not, as we shall hereafter see, the last they fell in with. After all, therefore, it is a question, whether it would not have been sufficient, without cutting down Majesties and Goliaths, or building Leanders and. Newcastles, to have made the Macedonian's fine class as effective as it ought to have been ; and, as the chief means of doing so, to have given to each 38-gun frigate, sent cruising to the westward, a well-trained crew of 370 men.

Some of the minor classes of ships of war now claim our attention ; and we shall soon have a set of cases to record, which will show that the Americans as much out-built the British in their " sloops," as they had outwitted and outfought them in their " frigates." The two principal classes of sloops of war, at this time belonging to the British navy, were the quarterdecked 18-gun ship-sloop, of about 430 tons, mounting 18 carronades,

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