as she passed.* But Lawrence either overlooked, or waved the advantage.

There, perhaps, never came alongside an enemy a crew more sedulously trained for battle than the seamen of the Shannon. It is highly creditable to the arms of America, that the reformation of the great-gun exercise in the British navy must be referred to the hostile energies of her half a dozen frigates. The English, long accustomed to beat the Spaniards and French at sea, never calculated a chance of discomfiture with American mariners, whom, with a superciliousness engendered by a conquest over all other naval flags, they held in contempt; little dreaming that the guns pointed by their hands seldom failed in the end to make their adversary's lower masts go by the board, his topmasts by the cap, and his yards in the slings. Whatever may be said in sport or malice of yankey ships, or yankey tars, the spectacle of a new maritime power, with not a single line of battle ship in commission, disputing not unsuccessfully with Great Britain the sovereignty of the sea, must excite the flame of admiration in every unprejudiced breast. It was in consequence of the reverses sustained by the British in their rencounters with such a foe, that the place of gunner in their frigates remained no longer a sinecure; but that he was called out of bed before broad day to supply ammunition for the seamen assem.

津

James's Naval Occurrences, p. 215. The author of this page was once on board a frigate in chase of another whose stern-guns being annoying, the crew were ordered to lie down on the deck: at such a time the officers walk to and fro.

bled to practise firing at their quarters.* The advantages resulting from this systematic training was evinced by the crew of the Shannon in the manner with which they now handled their cannon for the annoyance of their enemy. Not a gun was discharged prematurely; but, as the Chesapeake in rounding to on the Shannon's starboard quarter, brought her fore-mast in a line with the mizen-mast of the English ship, two shot were distinetly heard from her aftermost main-deck-guns, which, aimed at the American's ports, killed and wounded several of the crew: the Chesapeake fired her whole broadside in return, which elicited that of the Shannon sa fast as the sailors could bring their guns to bear effectually. An awful feature of this action is the great number of men that fell in it. Though from the firing of the first gun till the hauling down of the Chesapeake's

It is doubtful whether the British marines, however rigid and systematic their drilling, will ever become such dexterous marksmen as those of the United States Navy. The American Executive, in the late war, spared no pains to form an effective corps; they dispatched agents into the back-woods to enlist them, and established a marine-barrack close by their Congress Hall, from which deathful depôt they supplied their frigates. The American marines are riflemen, remarkable for their cool, deliberate firing. A scarcity of ammunition first introduced the practice into the country at Bunker's Hill, and the carnage that ensued among the British regulars was a fatal proof of its efficacy. While the military of Europe are employed in powdering, pipe-claying, blacking, and polishing, these yankey sharp-shooters are casting and cutting their own balls, oiling the insides of their rifles, or examining their flints; aud it is no uncommon thing for one of them to hold a board only nine inches square between his knees, while a comrade fires a ball through from a distance of one hundred paces.

colours only fifteen minutes elapsed, yet such was the destructive rage of the two ships' cannonade, that the aggregate loss on both sides was 126 killed, and 141 wounded; making a sanguinary total of 267. It is with pain that History records such an effusion of human blood; and it might justly provoke her pity and indignation that so copious a stream should flow from the hostile encounter of men endeared to each other by one common origin. In this engagement the attention has been generally directed to the numbers killed on board the Chesapeake, but the fact has been established by the confession of the English officers, that the Shannon had upwards of 20 men slain, and more than 50 wounded; a number sufficient to fill up the measure of casualties from shot fired by European enemies in three successive combats. Uutil her shot-holes were stopped the Shannon made considerable water upon the larboard tack. in gunnery appears to be innate among Americans; they have little need to fire many shot in play to make one hit in earnest. The execution however of the Chesasapeake's fire being more partial, bears no proportion to that of the Shannon, which finds an explication in the advantageous position that the English ship acquired as the American accidentally fell onboard of her. It is specified that nearly a hundred men were killed by the Shannon's two or three broadsides, the full fire of whose main-deck guns (as just hinted), swept unanswered the Chesapeake's deck through her cabin-windows. The havoc is ascertained to have been prodigiously great; for stating, as it is authenticated, that there wer 431 men on

Skill

board at the beginning of the action; if we deduct from this number 234, who were received as unhurt by the agent for prisoners at Halifax, it follows that there were 197 men killed and wounded; from which if we again deduct 91, the number brought into port wounded, there remain 106 for the Americans killed in this short but bloody encounter. Actions between fleets have been fought with less loss. The two frigates entered into action steering good full under their top-sails and jib, within half-pistol-shot; but, at the first broadside from the Shannon, the Chesapeake having her forc-top-sailtie shot away, her fore-top-sail-yard, of course, came down by the run, and her jib-sheet being at the same moment cut in two, the ship, from want of head-sail, came up in the wind, and her quarter-gallery-window got hooked by the fluke of a waist-anchor, which was stowed in the Shannon's starboard main chains; it had been placed there to assist in trimming her, as she discovered rather a list to port. As soon as the Chesapeake fell onboard of the Shannon, Captain Lawrence, either to put his ship on the defensive, or assault that of the enemy, called out for the bugle-man to summon the boarders with his horn; but the herald appointed to rouse the main-deck-seamen, now for the first time in battle, was so astounded with the din and clamour of voices, the roar of the cannon, the whizzing of the shot, and the smell and smoke of the powder, that he had deserted his gun, and crawled for shelter behind the capstan, where he was detected by a midshipman, who declared, after the action, that he never witnessed any thing in human shape so exquisitely droll in one sense, and so pitiable in another;

**

for, though in an agony bordering on the bitterness of death, he was not unmindful of his strong and imperious duty; but raised the horn to his mouth, which, from the chattering of his teeth, he could not inspire with an audible sound. No man can answer for his courage who has never been in danger: it is not every one that can maintain his composure amidst a shower of round, grape, and canister shot, calculated to unrig a ship, or take off a head; and there are thousands disposed to laugh over the calamity of the Chesapeake's bugle-man, who, had they been placed in his situation, would have been overtaken by the same infirmities. The votaries to renown may draw a salutary moral from his story. It may serve to teach them that the perpetuity of a name is not conferred by valour alone; that it is the prerogative of the panic-struck bugle-man, as well as the bravest in the battle, to be recorded and remembered; and that though honours are bestowed on courage, yet cowardice has its fame. The American Court of Inquiry, on the loss of the Chesapeake, recur to the fright of William Brown as one great cause of her surrender :† the disgrace of the day is

* The Chesapeake's bugleman is worthy of the talents of a LEONARDO DA VINCI: of a painter made up of all the elements without the preponderance of any one of a painter equally attracted by character and caricature: of a painter who can look terror full in the face, and deck it with drollery.

+"The Court are unanimously of opinion, that one of the causes "of the capture of the late United States frigate, Chesapeake, was "the bugleman's desertion of his quarters, and his inability to sound "his horn."

Report of the Court.