Customer Reviews

The Frigates: An Account of the Lighter Warships of the Napoleonic Wars 1793-1815

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After having read a number of other books on the subject, I have come to realise that this particular book is not only heavily biased in favor of the Royal Navy (which is not surprising, since it was written by a Brit), but contains a number of factual errors. Mr. Henderson strangely has no knowledge, or understanding of the causes of the war of 1812, and glosses over the whole affair as being incomprehensible. Yet nothing is further from the truth. Mr. Henderson mentions that there had been 'grumblings' for four years, yet does not mention what the 'grumblings' were about, and feels that the whole thing could have been solved by negotiation, and in fact HAD on several occassions before war was declared.

But the 'grumblings' in fact involved repeated instances of British warships stopping American ships at sea, and essentially kidnapping portions of their crews to serve in the Royal Navy against their will. In most instances, the Royal Navy officers responsible insisted that they were merely seizing 'deserters' from the Royal Navy, regardless of whether they were or not. The point is, until a Royal Navy vessel stopped and boarded an American ship at sea, there was no possibility that they might have any knowledge of whether such deserters were there or not, and certainly gave no consideration to either American national sovereignty (as represented by an American ship at sea), or any sort of inquest or trial of the supposed 'deserters' either before, or after the fact. Further, this stopping of ships was not by request, but compulsory, with Royal Navy ships even firing on American warships (HMS Leopard firing of USS Chesapeake) to force them to stop and essentially surrender out of hand. This outrageous behavior was not exclusive to the Royal Navy, as the French also stopped and boarded American vessels, to the point where a small war was fought against the French BEFORE the British, with a number of casualties inflicted before the French agreed to back down and cease molestation of American vessels. Further, British insistence on blockade, and the right to search and/or seize neutral vessels on the suspicion of carrying 'contraband' (which could be interpreted widely by the Royal Navy officer involved), meant that American vessels and their cargos were essentially prey for the Royal Navy anywhere in the world. THIS is why war was declared against Britain. It is hardly to be considered a complicated matter, nor was the issue entered into by the U.S. lightly, given the enormous preponderance of the Royal Navy at the time.

Mr. Henderson also has not done his research into American Frigates, and why they were as successful as they turned out to be. Yes, they were bigger and more heavily armed than most British frigates, but they were certainly NOT 'laid down as 74's' as is described of the USS United States. Such a vessel would generally referred to as a 'razee',' which is in fact a 74 that has been cut down a deck to make a powerful, but slow frigate (the French and the British did this with a number of their 74's, and all were notably unsuccessful). The USS United States was nothing of the sort, but was known as 'The Old Wagon' because it was considerably slower than the others in her class, but that was not because of any relationship to a ship of the line. Instead, USS United States had a bad initial launching, which wrenched the keel out of alignment and was never properly repaired. The ship also had an additional set of cabins and portlights aft, built on a whim by her commander, but not by original design (a number of large French frigates were similarly equipped), which was in fact identical to the other members of her class, the USS Constitution and the USS President.

Finally, Mr. Henderson never seems to mention any instances where British frigates were defeated by French or Spanish frigates, or even smaller vessels. Yes it is true that in most instances the British prevailed, but there were a number of incidents where they did not. What of the careers of some of the French frigates, corvettes and other smaller vessels? Surely Mr. Henderson has heard of Robert Surcouf and the various actions in Madagascar waters?

All that said, there are a number of very good accounts of various frigate battles in this book, which are well described and accounted for, and on that basis I have awarded this book three stars.