http://www.usmm.org/warof1812.html

Which reminds me of how the U.S. cheated in what we call the War of 1812. The USS Constitution, "Old Ironsides," was classified as a Frigate but was actually substantially bigger than British frigates of the time. Thus, when a British frigate captain engaged her--following the rules of engagement regarding comparative sizes and quantities of ships--he was at an automatic disadvantage. The brits didn't figure this out for a while, but when they did they defined a whole new classification of ships: Big Frigates. We have had you Europeans snookered for a couple of centuries now...  :-)