Originally Posted by
Pirate Queen
I think you ignore one salient fact: any RN ship was expected to beat any foreign ship of the same class, and often 2 or more. Any RN captain that didn't engage an enemy of the same rate would not just have been court-martialed, he himself would have expected to win, often handily.
It took a while before the capabilities of the 44-gun "pocket battleships" of the USN were appreciated, vs the 32-gun 'cruisers". Even more to the point, instead of the RN reliably having better crews than their enemies, here they were up against at least their equals, often their betters.