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William James wrote his "Naval Occurrences of the War of 1812" to counter the bombastic, patriotic and false version of the war put forward by American authors. To free the war from 'American dross', James used his legal mind to pick through a wealth of evidence and came to the conclusion that 'no American ship of war has, after all, captured a British ship of the same force'. Many of his more controversial and vociferous passages were trimmed and toned down for his later, 6-volume epic work on the history of the Royal Navy. Only by reading this work can readers appreciate the full force of his argument.