Note 25 — CHAP. XXV. A NAVAL STUDY—continued.

The President thus dictated to Captain Beresford:—“Captain Beresford must say whether the ships are marked on that chart (Mr. Stokes’s) as they appeared to him.” Captain Beresford took no notice of the order.

Captain Bligh was less independent when asked to vouch for the accuracy of Mr. Stokes’s chart. He “thinks the enemy’s ships, on the morning of the 12th, were as there represented, though Mr. Stokes, in contradiction to his own chart, had sworn that they were not so marked, but only those that were destroyed!”

When asked if the ships aground could have annoyed the British ships had they been sent in? Captain Bligh replied, “I think they were capable of annoying the British ships.”—Minutes, p. 154. He, however, immediately afterwards stated that the ships “were not within reach of the guns of the British squadron.”

Captain Kerr “thinks the situation of the enemy’s fleet on the morning of the 12th was marked on Mr. Stokes’s chart as nearly as it can be. There were seven sail-of-the-line ashore, and two afloat.”—Minutes, p. 166. What had the numbers ashore or afloat to do with their exact position? A palpable evasion of the question was permitted by the court.