If the wrong-doer was to be punished, it was Captain Wilkes
who ought to have gone into limbo. At any rate, as "the Cabinet of
Washington could not give its approbation to the commander of the 'San
Jacinto,'" why were the men not sooner set free? To sit at the
Tremont House, and hear the captain after dinner give his opinion on
international law, would have been better sport for the prisoners than
the grim salle-a-manger at Fort Warren.
* "At the beginning of December the British fleet on the
West Indian station mounted 850 guns, and comprised five
liners, ten first-class frigates, and seventeen powerful
corvettes. . . . In little more than a month the fleet
available for operations on the American shore had been more
than doubled. The reinforcements prepared at the various
dockyards included two line-of-battle ships, twenty-nine
magnificent frigates--such as the 'Shannon,' the 'Sutlej,'
the 'Euryalus,' the 'Orlando,' the 'Galatea;' eight
corvettes armed like the frigates in part, with 100- and 40-
pounder Armstrong guns; and the two tremendous iron-cased
ships, the 'Warrior' and the 'Black Prince;' and their
smaller sisters the 'Resistance' and the 'Defence.
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