It is significant to learn that during six weeks at sea they had fired but six practice broadsides, of blank cartridges, although there were many raw hands in the crew, while the men of the _Constitution_ had been incessantly drilled in firing until their team play was like that of a football eleven.

There was no shooting at random.

Under Hull and Bainbridge they had been taught their trade, which was to lay the gun on the target and shoot as rapidly as possible.
For the diminutive American navy, the year of 1812 came to its close with a record of success so illustrious as to seem almost incredible.

It is more dignified to refrain from extolling our own exploits and to recall the effects of these sea duels upon the minds of the people, the statesmen, and the press of the England of that period.

Their outbursts of wrathful humiliation were those of a maritime race which cared little or nothing about the course of the American war by land.