William M. James (1780 –
28 May 1827) was a British lawyer
turned naval historian who wrote important naval histories of the
French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1793-1815.
Career
Although little is known of his early life, William James was
trained in the law and began his career as an attorney.
He
practised before the Supreme Court of Jamaica
and served
as a proctor in the Vice-Admiralty Court of
Jamaica from 1801 to 1813. In 1812, when war broke out
between Great Britain and the United States, James was in the
United States.
Detained by American authorities as a British
national, he escaped to Halifax, Nova Scotia
in 1813.
This experience interested him in the
War of
1812 and he began to write about it, particularly defending the
reputation of the
Royal Navy and pointing
out the factual errors and excessive claims that American reports
made against the Royal Navy. His initial literary efforts seems to
have been letters written to the editor of the
Naval
Chronicle under the pen name 'Boxer'. In 1816, he published
his first pamphlet,
An inquiry into the merits of the principal
naval actions between Great Britain and the United States.
This pamphlet caused a controversy in the United States, leading to
much American criticism of James' views.
James went on to write his six-volume
Naval History of Great
Britain, 1793 - 1827 in reaction to American accounts of the
War of 1812. Similar in approach, this
work was highly critical of the history that his contemporary
Captain
Edward Brenton had written on
the subject and led to controversy between them that is reflected
in successive editions of their works.
James's legal background would influence his approach to obtaining
evidence. He attempted, therefore, and managed to board American
warships and speak to their crews, in order to verify their
characteristics at first hand.
In this pursuit he claimed, for example, that
the USS
Constitution
was not only
a lot bigger, but also more heavily manned and armed than -
contrary to previous American claims that the ships had been equal
at the time of their engagement. More alleged erroneous
American assertions were dealt with. Equally, James was not shy to
criticise British officers as well, where he saw fit.
James died in South Lambeth, London, in 1827, but his works
continued to be published.
Captain Frederick Chamier expanded the work in
1837 to included the Burmese War and the
Battle of
Navarino
. The book remained a major reference work
and was so often consulted that the
Navy Records Society published an index
to the history in 1895, which is now available on the
Internet.
Debate
Theodore Roosevelt, as a young Harvard
University
student in his senior year in 1876-77, began work
on a response from the American perspective. Published in
1882 as
The Naval War of 1812, the book took James to task
for what Roosevelt felt were glaring mistakes and outright
misrepresentations of fact based on malicious anti-American bias
and shabby research, despite James's painstaking research and
primary sources. In places, Roosevelt becomes almost mocking in his
criticism of James. The book was an immediate sensation in the
United States and is still considered a source book on the subject
(no less than three books on the War of 1812 written in 2006 alone
quoted from Roosevelt's response).
Scholars note, however, that Roosevelt's effort did not actually
refer to James's two books on the War of 1812. Instead, Roosevelt
referred to James's
Naval History series, which holds only
a shortened version. This avoidance of James's arguments and
detailed evidence of 1817 and 1818 is seen by some as largely
undermining Roosevelt's critique of James's work. Moreover,
Roosevelt is also accused of ignoring the earlier American claims
that provoked James in the first place: claims that might be best
understood to be beneficial to American morale at the time.
James's primary conclusion, that no American vessel of equal force
ever captured a British ship, essentially remains
unchallenged.
Published Works
- An Inquiry into the merits of the principal naval actions
between Great Britain and the United States : comprising an account
of all British and American ships of war captured and destroyed
since 18 June 1812
(Halifax: Holland, 1816).
- A full and correct account of the chief naval occurrences
of the late war between Great Britain and the United States of
America : preceded by a cursory examination of the American
accounts of their naval actions fought previous to that period
(London: T. Egerton, 1817); (London: Conway Maritime Press,
2002).
- Warden refuted; being a defence of the British navy against
the misrepresentations of a work ... entitled, “A statistical ...
account of the United States of North America,” by D.
B. Warden, ... in a letter to the author of that
work (London, 1819).
- The naval history of Great Britain from the declaration of
war by France in February 1793 to the accession of George IV in
January 1820 : with an account of the origin and progressive
increase of the British Navy ... Five volumes (London Baldwin,
Cradock & Joy, 1822-24); New edition in Six volumes ... and
an account of the Burmese War and the battle of Navarino.
(London: R. Bentley, 1837); (London: R. Bentley, 1847); (London: R.
Bentley, 1859); (London: Richard Bentley, 1860); (London: Richard
Bentley, 1886); (London: Macmillan, 1902); (London: Conway Maritime
Press, 2002).
References and Sources
- Andrew Lambert, introduction to
2002 and 2004 editions of James's works, as listed above.
- Lambert, Andrew (2004), 'Introduction', in William James,
Naval Occurrences of The War of 1812: A Full and Correct
Account of the Naval War between Great Britain and the United
States of America, 1812-1815 (London: Conway Maritime Press),
pp. I-V
References
- Lambert (2004), p. I-II
- Lambert (2004), p. v
- Lambert (2004), p. II
External links
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