Note 8 — JOHN QUINCY ADAMS IN RUSSIA
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A circular to British naval officers was at this time issued by the Secretary of the Admiralty. It read as follows: “My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty having received intelligence that several of the American ships of war are now at sea, I have their Lordships’ commands to acquaint you therewith, and that they do not conceive that any of his Majesty’s frigates should attempt to engage, single-handed, the larger class of American ships, which, though they may be called frigates, are of a size, complement and weight of metal much beyond that class and more resembling line-of-battle ships.
“In the event of one of his Majesty’s frigates under your orders falling in with one of these ships, his captain should endeavor in the first instance to secure the retreat of his Majesty’s ship; but if he finds that he has an advantage in sailing he should endeavor to manœuvre, and keep company with her, without coming to action, in the hope of falling in with some other of his Majesty’s ships, with whose assistance the enemy might be attacked with a reasonable hope of success.
“It is their Lordships’ further directions that you make this known as soon as possible to the several captains commanding his Majesty’s ships.” (The Croker Papers, I, 44.)
In a paper recently prepared by him on the American Navy, Rear-Admiral French Ensor Chadwick pronounces this “the finest tribute ever paid any navy.” (Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for November, 1912, Vol. 46, pp. 207–208.)