JAMES LAWRENCE.

little blood as possible, and he ceased his cannonading, when the Lottery treacherously renewed her firing. She was soon silenced by the Adeline forever, for she was so shattered that she sunk off New Point Comfort, while on her way to Lynn Haven Bay. Sinclair found portions of her wreck floating on the sea next morning.

In the proper order of time we should here consider the remarkable cruise of the Esser, Captain Porter, which left the Delaware on the 28th of October, 1812, with the motto Free Trade and Sailors' Rights at her mast-head, to join and become a part of the squadron of Commodore Bainbridge. Space will not permit a detailed account of that cruise; nor is such an account here necessary for the readers of the Magazine, one having been given in the number for August, 1859. It is sufficient to say now that during that cruise she captured in the Pacific twelve British whale-ships, with an aggregate of three hundred and two men and one hundred and seven guns. The Essex was finally captured in the harbor of Valparaiso, on the west coast of South America, on the 28th of the afternoon they exchanged broadsides within March, 1814, by the British frigate Phobe, 36, half pistol-shot distance. A close and severe and sloop of war Cherub, 20, after one of the action continued for about fifteen minutes, when most desperately-fought battles of the war. The the Peacock struck her colors and raised a signal gallant Porter held out until the carnage in his of distress. Lieutenant (now Commodore) Shu- ship was so great that he could muster only one brick was dispatched in a boat to take possession officer upon the quarter-deck. The combatants of her. He found her in the greatest peril. Her were so near the shore that some of their shots Captain had been killed, a great portion of her struck the beach. Thousands of the inhabitants crew were disabled by death or wounds, and she of Valparaiso saw the battle from the neighborwas rapidly sinking. Measures were immedi- ing heights. They perceived the overpowering ately taken to remove the wounded to the Hor- advantage of the British vessels, and their symnet, but she was ingulfed before this humane pathies were in favor of the Essex. When she undertaking was accomplished. Thirteen of her seemed to gain an advantage, loud shouts went crew went down in her. The Hornet lost only up from the multitude; and when she was finally one man killed and two slightly wounded. For disabled and lost, they expressed their feelings his gallantry on this occasion Captain Lawrence in groans and tears. The Essex lost one hunwas promoted to the command of the Chesapeake. dred and fifty-four in killed and wounded. CapHe was also honored by Congress with a com-tain Porter wrote to the Secretary of the Navy, memorative gold medal. He was then in his grave, and the memorial was presented to his nearest male relative.

Early in the year 1813 a British naval force took possession of Lynn Haven Bay, and committed depredations on land and water. In the vicinity was an American gun-boat flotilla under Lieutenant Arthur Sinclair. The enemy often endeavored to entice them from their anchorage ground. At length, on the 13th of March, a clipper-built schooner, the Lottery, mounting six guns, that had been captured from the Americans, challenged Sinclair by her movements, and he accepted it. In the schooner Adeline, mounting two or three guns, he went out to meet the Lottery. She fled, and he pursued her until darkness hid her from view. While he was lying off Gwyn's Island the Lottery attacked. They fought in the gloom about twenty minutes, when the enemy was silenced. Sinclair could not determine whether she had surrendered. Very soon the Lottery renewed the conflict, and was again silenced. Sinclair wished to shed as

"We have been unfortunate, but not disgraced."

On his return home after the capture of the Peacock, Captain Lawrence was placed in command of the Chesapeake, lately returned from an unsuccessful cruise, and styled "unlucky" by the sailors. She was lying in Boston harbor, then blockaded by a British squadron under Captain Broke, whose flag-ship was the Shannon, 38. Broke challenged Lawrence to come out and fight him. The challenge was accepted, in spite of the remonstrances of experienced officers, be

David Porter was born in Boston on the 1st of Febru

ary, 1750. He entered the navy as a midshipman at the age of nineteen years, on board the Constellation. In the capture of L'Insurgente his gallantry was conspicuous, and he was promoted to Lieutenant. He was with Bainbridge in the Mediterranean, and suffered imprisonment leans when war was declared in 1812. He was promoted at Tripoli. He was in command of a flotilla at New Orto captain, and served gallantly through the war. After his return from the Pacific he aided in the defense of Baltimore. In 1817 he commanded a squadron sent to the Gulf of Mexico, to suppress the pirates there. He left the navy

in 1826, and was afterward appointed Minister to Constantinople. He died there in March, 1843.

cause the Chesapeake was not in a condition to up the ship!" Other officers were struck down, cope with the enemy.

In this short but severe action the Chesapeake | defense of them the little fleet nobly seconded lost her commander, Lieutenants Ludlow, Bal- the efforts of the small land-forces there, and lard, and Broome, sailing-master White, boat- the enemy were repulsed. swain Adams, three midshipmen, twenty-seven seamen, and eleven marines killed; and ninetyeight officers and men wounded. The Chesapeake was taken to Halifax, where she was received with the greatest joy. Lawrence had died on the way, and was buried there with all proper honors. His remains were afterward taken to Salem, Massachusetts, and honored with a public funeral. They were finally conveyed to New York and buried in Trinity Churchyard, where a monument to his memory was erected. That decaying, another has been constructed. The victory of the Shannon, after the British navy had suffered so many reverses, was hailed in England with unbounded joy.

The advantages for marauding purposes offered to the British by the waters of Chesapeake Bay caused them to be much resorted to during the war; and in that vicinity many gallant deeds were performed. On the 17th of June, 1813, three British frigates anchored in Hampton Roads. The American frigate Constellation, Captain Tarbell, was then lying near Norfolk, with a flotilla of gun-boats. Tarbell sent fifteen of the latter to drive the enemy to sea. They reached the presence of the nearest vessel, the Junon, at four o'clock in the morning of the 20th, and in a thick fog opened a heavy, galling fire upon her. She was surprised and would have been compelled to surrender, so spirited was the attack, if she had not been aided by the other two frigates. The action lasted half an hour, and the Junon was seriously damaged. This little affair brought a stronger force of the enemy into the Roads, for the purpose of destroying the American defenses in the Elizabeth River, particularly those at Craney Island. In

In June, 1813, the United States brig Argus, 20, Captain Allen,* sailed for France with Mr. Crawford, American minister to the French court. She arrived at L'Orient at about the middle of July, and three days afterward sailed on a cruise in British waters. Her exploits there carried dismay to the mercantile circles of England, and revived the terror inspired by Paul Jones thirty-four years before. She captured twenty merchantmen in the immediate presence of the British Government. Several vessels were sent out to confront the audacious cruiser. Among them was the brig Pelican, 18, Captain Maples. She fell in with the Argus on the 14th of August, at six o'clock in the morning. Captain Allen was mortally wounded almost immediately. His first lieutenant was soon disabled and carried below, and the vessel was thereafter managed, in gallant style, by the second lieutenant, William H. Allen. In less than half an hour the Argus was so much damaged that she became unmanageable. At about seven o'clock the enemy boarded her, and at the same moment her colors were struck. The action lasted only about half an hour. Captain Allen died

in the hospital of Mill prison, England.

The little American brig Enterprise, Lieutenant Burrows, famous as the capturer of the Tripoli in the Mediterranean, now gained other and more brilliant honors. On the 5th of Septem

W. H. Allen was born at Providence, Rhode Island, in October, 1784, and entered the navy in the year 1800. His first cruise was in the Washington, under Bainbridge. He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1805, and was with Barron in the Chesapeake, in 1807. The only gun fired on that occasion he touched off with a coal in his fingers. He was Decatur's first lieutenant at the capture of the Macedonian.

victory over a British squadron under Commander Barclay. Perry's vessels were at anchor in Put-in-Bay, toward the western end of Lake Erie, on the morning of the 10th of September. He sailed out, having the Lawrence for his flagship, bearing the words of the brave commander of that name-"Don't give up the ship!" It was a very beautiful day, with a light breeze. The Americans had nine vessels, the British six. Perry was a young man of seven-and-twenty, and then ill with bilious fever; Barclay was a veteran who had served under Nelson.

ber, 1813, she encountered the British cruiser | small vessels on Lake Erie, gained a complete Boxer (a brig mounting fourteen guns), off the coast of Maine, not far from Portland. They engaged in a severe contest at about half past three o'clock in the afternoon, at half pistol-shot distance. The action lasted about forty minutes, when the Boxer surrendered. Her colors were nailed to her mast, and could not be struck. Her officer in charge surrendered by asking a cessation of cannonading. Both vessels lost their commanders. Lieutenant Burrows was mortally wounded by a canister shot, and Captain Blyth of the Boxer was killed by a cannonball from the first broadside fired by the Enterprise. Lieutenant M'Call, who assumed the command of the Enterprise, had both vessels taken into the harbor of Portland. There the two commanders were buried side by side, with the honors of war. Congress voted a gold medal to both Burrows and M'Call. The late Mathew L. Davis, of New York, in after-years, erected a monument over the grave of Burrows, by the side of one that already marked the burialplace of Blyth.

• Oliver Hazard Perry was born in South Kingston, Rhode Island, on the 23d of August, 1785. He entered the navy as a midshipman, at the age of thirteen years, on board the sloop of war General Greene. He accompanied Preble to Tripoli. In 1810 he was promoted to Lieutenant, and placed in command of a echooner in Commodore Rodgers's squadron. Early in 1812 he commanded a flotilla of gun-boats in New York harbor. He was sent to Lake Erie, and there performed signal service. After the war he was placed in command of the Java, and went with Decatur to the Mediterranean to punish the Dey of

Algiers. He went to the West Indies in 1819 to guard

American commerce from the pirates, and to destroy the corsaire. While on that station he died of yellow-fever in Angust, 1819.

The action commenced at a quarter before twelve by Barclay, who ordered his flag-ship Detroit to hurl a 24-pound shot at the Lawrence at nearly a mile and a half distance. The action soon became general, and Perry's ship was the principal target for the enemy, and the chief sufferer. The carnage was terrible, yet Perry would not yield. The Lawrence at length became a perfect wreck, and all her guns were silenced. Perry had assisted in firing her last shot. With unsurpassed bravery he left the Lawrence, passed through the fire and smoke in a small boat, and sprang to the deck of the Niagara, then almost uninjured. He brought her into action, cutting the British line, raking one of their vessels with his broadside port, and pouring a full broadside into two others that lay entangled and helpless. One of these was Barclay's flag-ship; and the gallant commander. who had lost an arm at Trafalgar, now had the other dreadfully shattered, and he was carried below.

The fortunes of the day soon turned in favor of Perry, and after a terrible battle of three hours he was enabled to write to General Harrison"We have met the enemy, and they are ours;