The navy had grown too large, too dependent on the dregs of society to man its ships, too addicted to brutal punishment

From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 192. A demonstration of the value of a free and open society and associated freedom of communication in the diagnosis and treatment of problems.

One of the few signed letters, from Captain William Henry Tremlett, asserted that while “much has been said about their superior weight of metal, and size of the vessels,” it was the Americans’ superior handling of their guns that was infinitely more important. The long neglect of gunnery in the Royal Navy was at last coming home to roost: “The first and grand cause is, that the American seamen have been more exercised in firing at a mark than ours—their government having given their commanders leave to exercise whenever they think proper, and to fire away as much ammunition as they please.” It would eventually come out that in their six weeks at sea, the crew of the Java had fired a total of only six broadsides before meeting the Constitution, all of them blanks. And Captain Tremlett noted that the damage done and the loss inflicted by American gunnery in all the battles was three to one, in one case ten to one, as great as what the British crews had been able to do, far beyond what any difference in the relative size and force of the ships could explain.

A number of writers to the Naval Chronicle even dared to offer blunt criticism of the most time-honored practices of the Royal Navy, suggesting that it had grown too large, too dependent on the dregs of society to man its ships, too addicted to brutal punishment of a kind long abandoned by the rest of civilized society. “The absurdity of our antiquated naval institutions and ‘customs,’ ” declared “Albion,” had produced a “dread of the service of their country among sailors.” That had made impressment a necessity to fill the navy’s ranks—which in turn both weakened the quality of the service and helped contribute to the very causes of the war that was now going so badly against Britain. “A Naval Patriot” agreed; the navy was manned by a very small number of real seamen and the rest the “good, bad, and indifferent, viz. ordinary seamen, landsmen, foreigners, the sweepings of Newgate, from the hulks, and almost all the prisons in the country.” With “such a motley crew,” he wrote, it was no wonder it was so hard to produce a well-disciplined and efficient fighting force.

Another writer, denouncing the “system of coercion” that was equal to “the meanest capacities to execute,” called for an end to flogging and its replacement with a “system of attachment” that would inspire British seamen to work together for reward rather than punishment. “Want of feeling and sense generally associate,” he observed; “the wise and good” must take a stand against brutality, which had only weakened Britain’s claim to mastery of the seas.