The "Chesapeake" and "Shannon"

While the Hornet was on her homeward-bound voyage, with her large number of prisoners, the Chesapeake, 38, Captain Evans, was out on a long cruise to the Cape de Verd Islands and the coasts of South America. She accomplished nothing, excepting the capture of four British merchant vessels; and as she entered Boston harbor in a gale, her top-mast was carried away, and with it several men who were aloft. These were drowned. She had the name of an "unlucky" ship. Evans was compelled to leave her on account of the loss of the sight of one of his eyes, and Lawrence, who had been promoted to captain, was put in command of her, with the Hornet, Captain Biddle, as consort.

At the close of May, the British frigate Shannon, 38 (she carried fifty-two guns), Captain Broke, appeared off Boston harbor in the attitude of a challenger. Lawrence observed her, and on the morning of the 1st of June he sent out a pilot-boat to ascertain whether she was alone. Shortly afterward Captain Broke sent in a polite note to Lawrence inviting him to come out to single combat, and assuring him that the Chesapeake would be crushed by a British squadron, if she should attempt to go to sea.

Seeing that the Shannon was without a consort, Lawrence, with Lieutenant Ludlow as his second in command, sailed out of Boston harbor to meet the boaster, at midday on the 1st of June. They engaged in a close conflict between five and six o'clock the same evening. After fighting twelve minutes, the shot of the Shannon so injured the spars and rigging of the Chesapeake, that she became unmanageable. Her mizzen rigging was entangled in the fore chains of her antagonist, in which position the decks of the Chesapeake were swept with terrible effect by the balls of the Shannon. Lawrence ordered his boarders to be called up. There was some delay in obedience, when a musket-ball mortally wounded the gallant young commander, and he was carried below. As he left the deck he said: "Tell the men to fire faster and not to give up the ship. Fight her till she sinks." The words of the dying hero, "Don't give up the ship!" became a battle-cry of the Americans. As an encouragement to any person struggling in life's battles, R. M. Charlton, referring to this incident, wrote in a short poem:

Broke's boarders soon swarmed upon the deck of the Chesapeake, where the highest officer, not hurt, was a mishipman. A fierce hand-to-hand fight ensued, in which Lieutenant Ludlow, before wounded, was mortally hurt by a sabre cut. Victory remained with the Shannon, after a most sanguinary battle, in which the Americans lost, in killed and wounded, one hundred and forty-six men, and the British eighty-four. Broke immediately sailed for Halifax with his prize, and the day before his arrival (June 7, 1813), Lawrence expired. The victory was hailed with great joy by the inhabitants. England rang with shouts of exultation. An American writer remarked, "Never did any victory--not even that of Wellington in Spain, nor those of Nelson--call forth such expression of joy on the part of the British; a proof that our naval character had risen somewhat in their estimation."

The loss of the Chesapeake was soon followed by another disaster. The American brig Argus, 32, Captain Allen, had borne to France William H. Crawford, United States minister to that government. Then she cruised in British waters, and by celerity of movement and destructive energy, she spread consternation throughout commercial England. In less than thirty days she destroyed or captured twenty British merchantmen with their cargoes, valued at two million dollars. Too far away from home to send in his prizes, Allen burnt them all, after generous treatment of their people. Several British cruisers were sent out to capture the Argus. Just before the dawn of the 14th of August (1813), the British sloop-of-war Pelican, 18, Captain Maples, attacked her. The men of the Argus were weakened by the too free use of captured wine the night before, and after a conflict of three-quarters of an hour, she was compelled to strike her colors. In the action, a round-shot had carried away a leg of the brave Allen, and he died the next day. The capture of the Argus gave great relief to the British shipping interest, at that time, for she had appeared to be invincible.

Soon afterward an American naval vessel won honor by a victory near the New England coast. The brig Enterprise, 14, Lieutenant Burrows, sailed out of the harbor of Portland, Maine, on the morning of the 4th of September, in search of British cruisers. The next day she encountered the British brig Boxer, 14, Captain Blythe. Both leaders were mortally wounded at the beginning of the conflict, and Lieutenant McCall commanded the Enterprise during the battle of four minutes, when the Boxer was surrendered. The bodies of the two young commanders were buried side by side, in a cemetery near the water's edge, at Portland, and their graves are marked by marble slabs suitably inscribed, lying upon brick foundations. Congress presented a gold medal to the nearest masculine relative of Lieutenant Burrows, and another was given to Lieutenant McCall.