of the fact Endymion had no boats intact to send over a prize crew with and attempted to escape under the cover of night. After the crew of the Endymion had quickly repaired her rigging, she, along with HMS Pomone and HMS Tenedos finally overtook and captured the damaged President. Later Decatur was to give unreliable accounts of the battle stating that President was already "severely damaged" by the grounding before the engagement, but was undamaged after the engagement with Endymion. He stated Pomone caused "significant" losses aboard President, although Presidents crew claim they were below deck gathering their belongings as they had already surrendered. Despite saying "I surrender my ship to the captain of the black frigate", Decatur also writes that he said, "I surrender to the squadron". Nevertheless, many historians such as Ian Toll, Theodore Roosevelt and William James quote Decatur's remarks to either enforce that Endymion alone took President or that President surrendered to the whole squadron, when actually it was something in-between. The United States Navy's smaller ship-sloops had also won several victories over Royal Navy sloops-of-war of approximately equal armament. The American sloops , , , and were all ship-rigged while the British sloops that they encountered were brig-rigged, which gave the Americans a significant advantage. Ship rigged vessels are more manoeuvrable in battle because they have a wider variety of sails and thus being more resistant to damage. Ship-rigged vessels can back sail, literally backing up or heave to (stop). In the only engagement between two brig-sloops the Cruizer-class brig HMS Pelican overwhelmed the USS Argus as she had greater firepower and tonnage, despite having less crew. USS Enterprise, a schooner that had been converted to a brig, took HMS Boxer a Bold-class gun-brig. These ships were of a comparable size with similar crews. USS Enterprise led a chasing Boxer out on run then turned and let fly at 10 yards. The Boxer replied at the same time. The Boxers captain was killed instantly while Enterprises captain received a mortal wound. The quality of gunnery was better on the Enterprise, de-masting Boxer. Unable to reply when Enterprise took up a raking position, Boxer surrendered. Privateering The operations of American privateers proved a more significant threat to British trade than the United States Navy. They operated throughout the Atlantic until the close of the war, most notably from Baltimore. American privateers reported taking 1300 British