Note 30 — Chapter V · THE NAVY.

The superiority of American gunnery, in this combat, was placed beyond dispute. It was a simple cannonade on a very rough sea. Yet the United States had but five killed and seven wounded, while out of three hundred men, the Macedonian had one hundred and four killed or wounded. So, also, the former lost her top-gallant masts, and had been hulled but a few times. It is true her rigging suffered severely, but the English frigate had almost every spar in her more or less shattered, while her hull was pierced with a hundred shot. In this, as in the former engagement between the Constitution and Guerriere, the United States carried four more guns than her antagonist. She was a heavier ship, but therefore a better mark, and yet the enemy's shot rarely hulled her. The decks of the latter presented a revolting spectacle. "Fragments of the dead were distributed in every direction—the decks covered with blood—one continued agonizing yell of the unhappy wounded,"[30] filled the ship.