Interesting description of the battle from the British POV. I don’t think the author likes us much. LOL
http://www.1812privateers.org/NAVAL/java.html
Reminds me of when the British were shocked, SHOCKED! to find that Americans were targeting British officers with long range super accurate rifles.
How dare those Americans target OFFICERS! Common soldier OK, but NOT OFFICERS!
The British public were, no doubt, shocked by the record of single ship combat between the American and Royal Navies. They were quick to offer excuse after excuse. The American 44 gun frigates were clearly superior to the British antagonists, but something else was at work.
The simple answer was that the American sailor was not French. They were competent seamen and all volunteers. They could handle both sail and guns and were well drilled in their duties. Unlike the French, the Americans aimed low, sending their shot smashing into the ships vitals just as the British preferred to do. The could service their guns as well or better than the British Tars, and therefore gave as good as they got. The British were not used to this, they had grown overconfident and a little underprepared from years of superiority over the French.
Of course, the U.S. Navy was no real threat to the Royal Navy, but it did give them pause and caused them to question why it made sense to wage war against Americans, whom they really wanted as trading partners, not enemies.
I was going to ask if Obama apologized to the British for this, but then I remembered that he doesn’t like the British.
Kinda puts him in a quandary, doesn’t it?
iirc this is the battle described in some detail by Patrick Obrien in his Aubrey/Maturin series