LOSS OF LAWRENCE AND THE _CHESAPEAKE_
THE YANKEES HAD WON SO OFTEN THAT THEY WERE UNDERESTIMATING THE
ENEMY AND WERE OVERCONFIDENT IN THEMSELVES--A MIXED CREW, NEWLY
SHIPPED, UNTRAINED AND MUTINOUS, TEN PER CENT OF THEM BEING
BRITISH--THE RESULT WAS NATURAL AND INEVITABLE--CHIVALRY A PLENTY;
COMMON-SENSE WANTING--THE “SHANNONS” WERE TRAINED LIKE YANKEES--A
FIERCE CONFLICT--SIGNIFICANCE OF THE JOY OF THE BRITISH OVER THE
_SHANNON’S_ VICTORY.
Now coil up your nonsense ’bout England’s great Navy,
And take in your slack about oak-hearted Tars,
For frigates as stout, and as gallant crews have we,
Or how came her _Macedon_ decked with our Stars?
Yes--how came her _Guerrière_, her _Peacock_ and _Java_,
All sent broken-ribb’d to Old Davy of late?
How came it? Why, split me! than Britons we’re braver,
And that they shall feel too whenever we meet.
So sang the Yankee ballad-maker when filled with the haughty spirit
that precedes a fall. Surely, if ever a young nation had reason for
exultation and even for vainglorious songs young America had. During
eight months her tiny navy had not only maintained itself upon the high
seas where the enemy out-numbered it a hundred to one, but, as said,
it had won more victories in that time than all Europe had been able to
do in twenty years. Not only had the Americans showed the sturdy and
persistent courage of the ancestral stock; they had shown the ingenuity
of invention, the power of adaptation under unusual circumstances,
and the general progressiveness which the spirit of that stock
always develops when freed from Tory--that is to say, unreasonably
conservative--restraints. To the natural aptness for the sea which they
had in common with their cousins over the water, they had added such
characteristics as naturally grow out of self-government.
Unfortunately, however, along with much good from the ancestral stock,
they had also inherited not a little of the tendency to arrogant
self-esteem. As the unbroken series of victories over European navies
had made the British sailors feel themselves invincible, so the
practically unbroken, if short, series of victories of the Americans
over the British tars in the early months of the War of 1812, brought
them to a state of mind where they trusted in something else than the
unwearied vigilance and training that had made the crews of Hull,
Decatur, Bainbridge, Jones, and Lawrence, the wonder--literally the
wonder--of the whole world. Thereafter, defeat impended whenever an
American ship might fall in with a British ship whose commander had
not fallen into the prevailing slovenly habits of his navy.
[Illustration: James Lawrence.
_From an engraving by Edwin of the portrait of Stuart._]
As it happened, Lawrence, who had been the last to earn the applause
of his countrymen, was to be the victim of the growing vanity of his
navy. In the frigate _Chesapeake_ he sailed out of Boston to meet the
_Shannon_. As the people of Carrickfergus in the north of Ireland went
out on an excursion fleet to see Captain Burden of the British ship
_Drake_ thrash the life out of John Paul Jones in the American ship
_Ranger_, so the people of Boston flocked to the sea in all sorts of
craft and climbed to heights overlooking the water that they might see
Lawrence bring in the bold Captain Broke, who was cruising to and fro,
anxious for a combat. That they returned humiliated was due to the fact
that Lawrence went into the battle in the spirit of Dacres and Carden,
while Broke went into it in the spirit of Hull and Decatur.
When Lawrence returned from the cruise on the coast of South America
he applied to the Secretary of the Navy for the command of the
_Constitution_. After some correspondence his request was granted, and
then the order was recalled, and he was sent, very much against his
will, to the _Chesapeake_. His dislike for the _Chesapeake_ will be
very well understood by any sailor when it is recalled that she was
the unlucky ship of the navy. She had sailed from Boston under Captain
Evans, on December 13, 1812, and had arrived back on April 9, 1813. She
had captured five merchantmen, and had escaped when chased by a British
seventy-four and a frigate, but that was all she had done. On reaching
port there was trouble in her crew over the payment of the prize money,
and most of them left her, the two years for which they had shipped
being ended. Evans left her because of trouble with his eyes. It would
have been better for her new commander if more of the crew had left,
for of those who stayed not a few were foreigners, and these were under
the influence of a Portuguese boatswain’s mate. That a Portuguese, of
all nationalities, should have been trusted even with a petty office
shows to an American sailor the character of the crew whom Lawrence
found on board. Among other foreigners, too, were thirty-two of English
birth.
The exact day when Lawrence arrived is not recorded, but he did not
leave the _Hornet_ in New York until after May 10th, and that was in
the time of stage coaches. It was at about the middle of May that he
took command. A still further indication of the condition of affairs on
board is found in the fact that Acting-Lieutenant Pierce was allowed
to leave the ship, as Lawrence explained it, because of “his being at
variance with every officer in his mess.”
With a ship that, figuratively speaking, carried the flag of the
“Flying Dutchman,” and with the nucleus of a crew in a mutinous state
of mind over a failure to get the prize money to which they believed
themselves entitled, Lawrence began fitting out for sea. The wages
in the navy then were fair, and the glory of the flag undimmed, but
getting sailors for the _Chesapeake_ was the hardest work of the life
of her commander. Nor was it merely that she was an unlucky ship. It
must not be forgotten that hosts of American seafaring men were then by
force serving in the British navy, while more than two thousand of them
were then in Dartmoor prison in England, whither they had been sent
by such of the English captains as were humane enough not to compel
an American to fight against his flag. Of the few American seamen
who remained to man American ships not many were found to ship on a
man-o’-war. The privateers, of whom some stirring tales remain to be
told, had picked them off the streets. The crew which Captain Lawrence
obtained was precisely such a crew as a ship fresh from an English port
in those days would have had naturally--a crew that was swept up from
the streets as a whole, and yet contained a considerable number of
experienced, capable men. It was what a football expert would call a
scrub team. It was a crew that in six weeks might have been trained by
Lawrence to fight as one man, but Lawrence never had the opportunity to
train it.
The _Chesapeake_ was fitting for a voyage to the east, where she could
intercept British ships bound for the St. Lawrence, and thence to the
Greenland whale fishery. The _Hornet_, under Master Commandant James
Biddle, was to meet the _Chesapeake_ at Cape Canso.
Meantime a British ship-of-the-line, and the frigate _Shannon_, Captain
Philip Bowes Vere Broke (the ship that had chased the _Constitution_
for three days), had been blockading the port of Boston, but Broke,
who was looking for laurels in a single-ship fight with an American
frigate, sent the ship-of-the-line away, and alone maintained the
blockade.
[Illustration: Sir Philip Bowes Vere Broke, Bart.
_From a lithograph of the portrait by Lane._]
Meantime it should be told that Broke was showing himself one of the
ablest captains in the British navy. He may have hated the Yankees
but he did not despise them so much that he would not imitate them.
He had for seven years commanded the _Shannon_, and in that time, and
especially since war was declared by the United States, he had worked
with his crew as a Hull, or a Decatur, or a Lawrence would have done.
He called them his “Shannons.” He made them proud of their ship. He
fitted sights to his guns and he offered prizes to successful marksmen.
He tumbled empty casks into the sea, and then sailed around them while
his gunners fired at them. He trained his marines and other topmen
in the use of muskets until they could see through the sights before
pulling the trigger. He was as proud of them as they were of him and of
the ship, and the pride was justified on both sides.
Eventually opportunity offered, and he wrote a challenge to the
_Chesapeake_ to come out and fight--“ship to ship, to try the fortunes
of our respective flags.” Unfortunately this letter was a long time
in reaching Boston, and Lawrence never saw it. Had he received it he
would have set a date that would have given him sufficient time to
get his crew in hand. As it was, the report that a single British
frigate was cruising to and fro off Boston light, plainly waiting for
the _Chesapeake_, came to town and stirred the whole community into a
patriotic glow.
What was Lawrence to do under the circumstances? He had himself in the
_Hornet_ cruised off Bahia, daring the nerveless Captain Greene of the
_Bonne Citoyenne_ to come out “ship to ship, to try the fortunes of
our respective flags.” He had met the British _Peacock_ and shot her
gorgeous feathers out of sight. He had earned a glorious reputation for
bravery and skill. He had come to think lightly of the skill, though
not lightly of the valor of the enemy. There was but one thing that a
man like him could do. He rejoiced at the chance to meet the enemy once
more single-handed. Bainbridge and others advised him to wait until
he had trained his crew, but he was unable to endure the thought of
having the British deride him as he had derided Greene of the _Bonne
Citoyenne_.
Barely waiting to complete the number of his crew, he spread his
sails--indeed the last draft of men came on board and went directly to
sheets, halyards, and the capstan, without stowing away their clothes
and hammocks. The men did not know the officers even by sight. They did
not know each other. They did not know their places at either the ropes
or their guns. The _Chesapeake_ was going to sea in so nearly the same
condition as that in which she met the _Leopard_, that the unprejudiced
student must see the resemblance. It was the folly of pride to go to
meet any frigate in such fashion.
It was on the morning of June 1, 1813, that the _Chesapeake_ sailed.
A Nova Scotia negro, it is said, stood on the long wharf as the last
boatload of the _Chesapeake’s_ crew put off to board her, and called
out to a friend:
“Good-by, Sam. You is gwine to Halifax befo’ you comes back to
Bosting. Gib my lub to ’quirin’ friends, an’ tell ’em I’s very well.”
He was a wise prophet but a foolish darky. He told the truth and
narrowly escaped death at the hands of a mob for doing so.
[Illustration: James Lawrence
_From an engraving by Edwin._]
With such speed as was possible, Captain Lawrence spread his sails
to the breeze, spread everything from courses to royals and studding
sails, and drove away beyond the light. On his way out he hoisted a
great burgee containing the words “Free trade and sailors’ rights.”
As the reader will remember, “free trade” there had no reference
to tariffs or imports--the phrase meant that the Americans were
fighting for the right to trade on the high seas unmolested by British
press-gangs and Orders-in-Council. Then the crew were called into the
gangway, where Captain Lawrence began to talk to them to infuse some of
his own spirit into their breasts. But hardly had he begun when he was
interrupted by loud murmurs from the men who had been on the previous
cruise of the _Chesapeake_. Led by the “scoundrel Portuguese, who was
boatswain’s mate,” they _demanded_ their prize-money under penalty of
refusing to do duty. Not only was the crew raw and untrained; it was to
an astounding extent mutinous.
What ought to have been done at this moment--what a modern naval
officer would have done--may be a matter worth considering, but
Lawrence yielded to the mutineers by calling them into the cabin and
giving them checks for the prize-money due. Then they went forward and
First Lieutenant Augustus C. Ludlow, assisted by Second Lieutenant
George Budd (an officer of some experience) and Midshipmen William Cox
and Edward J. Ballard, acting as third and fourth lieutenants, strove
to get the crew into their places.
The _Chesapeake_, very brave in her display of colors, passed the
Boston light at about one o’clock in the afternoon and headed away
after the _Shannon_, that stood off shore, with a pleasant breeze until
3.40. Then the _Shannon_ clewed down and put a reef in her topsails,
and thereafter she filled and backed for an hour while the _Chesapeake_
was bearing down on her and preparing for battle. “Lawrence displayed
great skill and tactics when closing,” as the enemy testified, and at
5.50 P.M. luffed up and backed his mainyard within fifty yards of the
_Shannon’s_ weather-quarter instead of wearing down across the stern
and raking her as he might have done.
[Illustration: The _Chesapeake_ and _Shannon_.--Commencement of the
Battle.
_From an engraving at the Navy Department, Washington._]
That was magnificent for bravery--it was chivalrous to the highest
degree--so high as to be beyond the realm of common sense.
Up to this moment neither ship had fired a shot at the other,
and both crews stood at their guns in perfect silence. Lawrence,
“colossal in figure, with muscular power superior to most men,” paced
his quarter-deck “fatally conspicuous by his full-dress uniform.”
Broke, equally courageous and cool, stood upon his deck watching the
Yankee. He had foreseen the manœuvre that Lawrence would make and had
ordered William Windham, who commanded the fourteenth gun, counting
from forward on the weather side of the _Shannon_, to fire as soon
as he could see into the second of the ports on the lee-side of the
_Chesapeake_.
At precisely 5.50 P.M. Windham pulled the lanyard of his gun and the
battle was on. The other guns of the _Shannon_ were fired in quick
succession and the _Chesapeake_ replied with a full broadside. The
_Chesapeake_ forged ahead slightly and was luffed still more. Her
broadsides told with great effect, but the fire of the _Shannon_
was more rapid and had such a terrible effect that “the men in the
_Shannon’s_ tops could hardly see the deck of the American frigate
through the cloud of splinters, hammocks, and wreck that was flying
across it.” As seen from above “the deck was covered with a mist of
débris as the mist of spoondrift in a pelting gale.”
Warmed by the heat of battle, Broke was shouting “Kill the men!
Kill the men!” His well-trained sharp-shooters heard and obeyed.
Three quarter-masters were shot from the _Chesapeake’s_ wheel in
rapid succession, while Lawrence himself was struck in the leg by
a musket-ball. But Lawrence merely rested his weight against the
companionway and continued to direct the fight. First Lieutenant Ludlow
was mortally wounded, and was carried below. The storm of grape and
musket-balls was clearing the whole crew from the upper deck of the
_Chesapeake_.
Meantime, having luffed up to deaden her headway, the wind caught
the _Chesapeake_ aback, and she began to drift astern with her lee
quarter exposed to the broadside of the _Shannon_. The _Shannon’s_
fire was raking her. The brails of her spanker were shot away and the
wind caught and spread that sail and so swung her stern still nearer
to the _Shannon_. A hand-grenade thrown from the _Shannon_ landed in
the _Chesapeake’s_ lee quarter-deck arm-chest, where it exploded the
ammunition stored there. The flames spread in a huge flash through
the splinters and dust, clear to the forecastle, filling the air with
a cloud of smoke. The rigging of the _Chesapeake_ was badly cut. Her
boatswain and sailing-master were dead. There was no one forward
to see the orders of Captain Lawrence obeyed. The _Chesapeake_ was
drifting stern on into the _Shannon_, and ten minutes after the fight
began the two ships fouled.
[Illustration: The _Chesapeake_ and _Shannon_.--After the first two
broadsides from the latter.
_From an engraving at the Navy Department, Washington._]
At that Lawrence called for boarders, but the bugler, who was a negro
landsman, had hidden himself, frightened half to death. Still a few men
answered the call, but they were to try to repel boarders rather than
to board. A desperate hand-to-hand conflict followed at the rails of
the two ships. Brawny Boatswain Stevens, who boasted that he had served
under Rodney, lashed the ships together, though an American slashed
off his left arm with a cutlass as he took the last turn, and thus
inflicted a mortal wound.
[Illustration: Diagram of the CHESAPEAKE-SHANNON BATTLE.]
But the end was at hand. Lieutenant Law, of the British marines,
recognizing Lawrence, fired at him, and the ball pierced his abdomen. A
few minutes after he had been carried below he noticed that the fire
had slackened greatly. He at once “forgot the anguish of his wounds,
and having no other officer near, ordered John Dip, the surgeon’s mate
in attendance on him on deck to “_Tell the men to fire faster, and not
give up the ship_; the colors shall wave while I live.”
But that was an order that could not be obeyed. Captain Broke had
called his men to the rail to repel boarders, and quickly observed the
confusion following after Lawrence was carried below. Throwing down
his trumpet and drawing his sword, he shouted to his men the inspiring
order:
“Follow me!” And at 6.02 P.M. he stepped over the _Shannon’s_ rail to
the muzzle of one of the _Chesapeake_ s quarter-deck guns and thence
leaped to the deck of the _Chesapeake_. He was followed by twenty of
his men.
A few Americans, led by Parson Samuel Livermore, the ship’s chaplain,
made a “desperate but disorderly” resistance. The parson fired a pistol
at Broke but missed him, and before he could recover his extended arm,
the captain with a “backward stroke of his good and mighty Toledo
blade,” sliced it almost clear of his shoulder, and “felled the patriot
to the deck.” Then the boarders charged along the platforms (gangways)
on each side of the _Chesapeake_ leading to the forecastle deck.
[Illustration: “DON’T GIVE UP THE SHIP!”
Death of Captain Lawrence
_From an engraving by Hall of the picture by Chappel._]
Forty-four marines had been stationed on the upper deck under
Lieutenant James Brown. Of these men, fourteen were already dead,
including the lieutenant and a corporal, while two sergeants and
eighteen others were wounded. There were left nine marines under
a corporal on the forecastle, where some of the sailors remained
also. These met and held the dashing Broke and his men at bay until
reinforcements came. It was now indeed a desperate fight for the few
Americans. The _Chesapeake’s_ mizzen-topmen were firing on the boarders
with good aim. A long-nine was fired from the _Shannon_ at this top and
the charge cleared the top as a charge of bird-shot destroys a huddled
covey of quails. The fore and maintopmen of the _Shannon_ silenced the
maintopmen of the _Chesapeake_--silenced them in death. Then fresh men
came to the aid of Broke, who “was still leading his men with the same
brilliant personal courage he had all along shown. Attacking the first
American who was armed with a pike, he parried a thrust from it and cut
down the man; attacking another, he was himself cut down” with a blow
that laid open his skull and exposed his brain. He was saved by Gunner
Windham, who fired the first shot of the battle. Windham inflicted a
mortal wound on the American. But though this American was dying, he
still fought on. Clutching a bayonet, he strove to drive it into the
English commander, who in turn was trying to kill the American with a
dagger, but the American proved the stronger and would soon have ended
Broke when a British marine came to the rescue. In the excitement the
marine was about to bayonet his own commander, who was underneath the
American, but Broke called out:
“Pooh! Pooh! you fool! Don’t you know your captain?” So the American
was killed instead.
So stubborn was the resistance that the Englishmen would have been
repulsed but for the reinforcements, who when they came gave no
quarter. They killed every American on the forecastle.
Meantime word was carried below to the Americans that the British were
on the upper deck. Instantly the Portuguese mutineer took the gratings
from the hatch leading to the lower hold and climbed down, shouting “So
much for not paying men prize-money.”
[Illustration: The _Chesapeake_ and _Shannon_.--The _Shannon’s_ men
boarding.
_From an engraving at the Navy Department, Washington._]
He was followed by about all the foreigners. Lieutenant George Budd
and a dozen veteran American seamen started for the upper deck, but on
reaching it Budd was struck and knocked down the hatchway. The “novices
held back.” There were not enough veterans to conquer. The _Chesapeake_
swung around and broke clear of the _Shannon_, leaving no more than
sixty of the British on the _Chesapeake’s_ deck, but they had the
deck. Two volleys were fired down the hatches and the Americans were
entirely demoralized. Going aft, the British hauled down the American
flag at 6.05 o’clock and the battle was ended. They had captured the
_Chesapeake_ in just fifteen minutes.
On getting the flag down they hoisted it with a white flag to show
their victory, but by mistake the sailor doing the work got the white
flag under the Stars and Stripes. Seeing this, the men on the _Shannon_
opened fire again and killed and wounded a number of their own men,
including Lieutenant Thomas L. Watt.
On the weary road to Halifax Lawrence gradually lost strength and
became delirious. It is said that then he kept repeating over and over
again his last order on the quarter-deck of the _Chesapeake_, “Don’t
give up the ship.” He died before Halifax was reached. Captain Broke,
also wounded almost unto death, also became delirious, but before he
became so he startled the crews of both ships by ordering a Scotch
piper on the _Shannon_ to play “Yankee Doodle.” “Yankee Doodle” on a
Scotch bag-pipe would be startling, at least to Americans, under any
circumstances, but this time it was played at night and in a dense fog.
It is said that many of the people on both ships supposed at first
that one of the Yankee frigates had “happened along.”
The two ships arrived at Halifax on a Sunday morning. “There was a
great shout from the people, for they thought our prize was the 44-gun
frigate _President_, which had incurred their cordial dislike, but
when they heard that it was the _Chesapeake_, and that Lawrence, her
commander, was dead, not a huzza was heard, except, I believe, from a
brig lying at anchor. Captain Lawrence was highly respected for his
humanity to the crew of the _Peacock_, and marks of real grief were
seen in the countenances of all the inhabitants, I had a chance to
see.” So wrote a British officer.
The body of Lawrence lay on the quarter-deck of the _Chesapeake_,
wrapped in an American flag. It was placed in a coffin and taken ashore
“in a twenty-oared barge, to minute strokes, followed by a procession
of boats at respectful distances. It was met by a regiment of British
troops and a band that played the ‘Dead March in Saul.’” The sword of
the American was placed on his coffin, which was then carried away by
six of the oldest naval officers in the port. The long procession that
followed included many of the wounded of both ships.
[Illustration:
_Broke._
The Fight on the _Chesapeake’s_ Forecastle.
_From a lithograph in the “Memoir of Admiral Broke.”_]
Six weeks later George Crowninshield, jr., a privateersman, and ten
other ship-masters, went to Halifax in the brig _Henry_ under a
flag of truce, and brought home the bodies of Captain Lawrence and
Lieutenant Ludlow, and they were interred in Trinity cemetery, in lower
Broadway, New York. The monument of the two men can be seen by the
curious wayfarer at the southeast corner of the old brown-stone pile.
On the end that faces Broadway are these words:
Neither the fury of battle, the anguish of a mortal wound, nor the
horrors of approaching death could subdue his gallant spirit. His
dying words were
“Don’t Give up the Ship.”
The report of the capture of the _Chesapeake_ which was published in
London immediately on the arrival of the news was a forged document.
Broke was lying delirious in his cabin from the time the _Shannon_
arrived in Halifax until after the brig that carried the news to
England had sailed. Yet a formal report, signed with his name, was
published in London immediately after the brig arrived. And it is this
forged document that forms the basis of the British accounts of the
fight.
The conventional comparison of the ships shows that the _Chesapeake_
carried forty-nine guns, throwing 540 pounds of metal at a broadside,
to the _Shannon’s_ fifty-two, throwing 547 pounds. Her crew numbered
340 to the _Shannon’s_ 330. The _Chesapeake_ lost forty-seven killed,
and ninety-nine wounded, while the _Shannon_ lost only twenty-four
killed and fifty-nine wounded. “Training and discipline won the
victory” over a “scrub” crew; but it should be kept in mind that this
crew was untrained because there had been no time to train it. If
Captain Lawrence had had the six weeks which the _Java_ had before
meeting the _Constitution_, it would not have been a “scrub” crew. And
it is worth noting that even this crew inflicted far more injury on
the _Shannon_ than either of the British frigates thus far captured
had inflicted on her American antagonist. The _Shannon_ was struck by
twelve eighteen-pound shot, thirteen thirty-two-pound shot and fourteen
bar shot.
“The Americans were filled with a profound gloom and an unreasonable
loss of confidence in their navy, while the English gave vent to
extravagant demonstrations of joy, simply because an English frigate
had captured an American of the same force.” Considering the course of
the naval war up to that time, however, an unprejudiced student must
say that the British joy was not unreasonable if the American gloom
was. The British made Broke a baronet and a Knight Commander of the
Bath. London gave him a sword and the “freedom of the city.” The Tower
guns were fired in honor of the victory. The joy which this lone
victory gave the British people is the strongest proof of their faith
in, and admiration for, American prowess. Broke saw no active service
after the battle. He died in 1841.
[Illustration: The _Shannon_ taking the _Chesapeake_ into Halifax
Harbor.
_From an engraving at the Navy Department, Washington._]
A song that was published in the British _Naval Chronicle_ some months
before the battle contained this stanza:
And as the war they did provoke,
We’ll pay them with our cannon;
The first to do it will be Broke.
In the gallant ship the Shannon.
The British Historians unite in asserting that this battle proved
conclusively that “if the odds were anything like equal, a British
frigate could always whip an American, and that in a hand-to-hand
conflict such would invariably be the case.”
A French historian, who is accepted as authority by all nations, says
of this action:
“Captain Broke had commanded the _Shannon_ for nearly seven years;
Captain Lawrence had commanded the _Chesapeake_ for but a few days. The
_Shannon_ had cruised for eighteen months on the coast of America; the
_Chesapeake_ was newly out of harbor. The _Shannon_ had a crew long
accustomed to habits of strict obedience; the _Chesapeake_ was manned
by men who had just been engaged in mutiny. The Americans were wrong
to accuse Fortune on this occasion. Fortune was not fickle, she was
merely logical. The _Shannon_ captured the _Chesapeake_ on June 1,
1813, but on September 14, 1806, when he took command of his frigate,
Captain Broke began to prepare the glorious termination of the bloody
affair.”
Ye sons of old Neptune, whose spirits of steel
In tempests were hardened, by peril were tempered,
Whose limbs, whose limbs like the wild winds that sweep the bare
keel,
By fetters of tyrants shall never be hamper’d;
’Mid the storm and the flood
Still your honors shall bud,
And bloom with fresh fragrance though nurtured with blood;
For the tars of Columbia are lords of the wave,
And have sworn that the ocean’s their throne or their grave!
The chiefs who our freedom sustain’d on the land
FAME’S far-spreading voice has eterniz’d in story;
By the roar of our cannon now called to the strand
She beholds on the ocean their rivals in glory,
Her sons there she owns,
And her clarion’s bold tones
Tell of Hull and Decatur, of Bainbridge and Jones;
For the tars of Columbia are lords of the wave,
And have sworn that old ocean’s their home or their grave!
She speaks, too, of Lawrence, the merciful brave,
Whose body in death still his flag nobly shielded;
With his blood he serenely encrimsoned the wave,
And surrendered his life but his ship never yielded;
His spirit still soars
Where the sea-battle roars
And proclaims to the nations of earth’s farthest shores,
That the tars of Columbia are lords of the wave,
And have sworn that old ocean’s their home or their grave!
[Illustration: In Memory of Captain James Lawrence.
_From an old engraving._]