To be fair, Walrus, perhaps you don't know that you are entering into one of the longest-running arguments in Naval History. As I mentioned earlier, Captain Stewart of Constitution reportedly had Cyane repainted to represent a 36 gun frigate (possibly painting extra gunports - I have no details about this). Cyane should have been recaptured at the same time as Levant, but there was some sort of cock-up over signals.

When Cyane was taken into New York, The Boston Gazette reported that the Cyane was 'frigate-built' (three masts, guns on upper deck and a quarterdeck). Incidently, this expression was also used for merchant ships (cf The Gallant Frigate Amphritite). The Gazette also said (wrongly) that Cyane was the same size as the American frigate Essex, captured by the British earlier in the war although Essex was nearly over 300 tons bigger. The problem was made worse by the US Authorities referring to Cyane as a frigate, when if they had built her she would have been a corvette or possibly even a sloop.

All this had started earlier when the British press had sought to excuse the loss of three frigate to the larger American frigates. During the war the American press made some ridiculous claims which William James sought to refute in his book 'Naval Occurrences of the War of 1812' published in 1817 but still available from Coway Publishing, UK. In seeking redress for some of the things said James probably goes too far.

Much later, in 1882 an important book was published in the USA 'The Naval War of 1812'. It's author? None other than Theodore Roosevelt, later President of the USA. He sought to refute some of James' claims. He describes Cyane as a 'frigate-built ship corvette'.