Ironsides,”[1] or the “Old Wagon,”[2] I’m blessed! but the guns would have gone off themselves, had the whole crew mutinied and refused to come to quarters, when they heard the roar of the British cannon—aye, aye, Old Ironsides’ bull-dogs have barked at John Bull often enough, aye, and always held him by the nose, too, when they growled—but the Chesapeake’s colours was hauled down, while the Shannon’s was flying.—That’s enough—we had to knock under—let them have the credit of it, say I.—They’d little cause, except in that ere fight, to crow over the Yankee blue jackets. They whipt us, and there’s an end of the matter, and be damned to ’em.—But that ain’t answering your question, as how I lost my larboard flipper. It wasn’t in that ere unfortunate ship, altho’ if it would have saved the honour of the flag, Bill Kennedy would willingly have given his head and his arms too—but it was under Old Chauncey on Lake Ontario. It was in a boat expedition on that ’ere lake, that I first got a loose sleeve to my jacket, besides being made a pris’ner into the bargain. You see, Sir James was shut up in Kingston, and beyond the harbour there was a long bay or inlet setting up some three or four miles. Now, the Commodore thought it mought be, there was more of his ships in that same bay; so he orders Lieutenant ——, him as the English called the ‘Dare-devil Yankee,’—the same as went in with a barge the year before and burned a heavy armed schooner on the stocks, with all their stores, and came away by the light of it—at—at—I misremember the place—he orders him to proceed up the bay to reconniter—to see whether there was any of the enemy’s ships at anchor there—to get all the information he could of his movements, and to bring off a prisoner if he could catch one—that the Commodore mought overhaul him at his leisure. So the lieutenant takes a yawl as we had captured some days before, having Sir James’s own flag painted upon her bows, with midshipman Hart, and eight of us men, and pulls leisurely along shore, till we made the entrance of the bay. It was a bright summer afternoon, and the water was as calm as the Captain’s hand-basin—not a ripple to be seen. Well, the entrance was narrow, and somewhat obstructed by small islands; but we soon got through them, never seeing two heavy English men-of-war barges, as was snugly stowed in the bushes; but about three miles up, we spies a raft of timber, with two men on it. We gave way, and before long got up abreast of it. When we got close aboard the raft, the lieutenant hailing one of the men, calls him to the side nearest the boat, and says—‘My man, what are you lying here for, doing nothing—the wind and tide are both in your favour—don’t you know we are waiting down at Kingston for this here timber for his Majesty’s sarvice—what are you idling away your time for here?’ The feller first looks at Sir James’s flag painted upon the bows of the yawl; and then at the lieutenant, and then again at the flag—and