That day the most spectacular, if not the most important battle of the war was fought. In a last attempt to break the American hold on Lake Erie, and save Detroit from starvation, Barclay, one of Nelson's captains, with six ships and carrying light guns, put out against Perry, the young and daring American, with his nine ships, and doubly heavy cannon. The American Lawrence, with her flag inscribed "Don't give up the ship," led into battle. It was a battle of seamanship. Barclay wished to fight at long range where the better marksmanship of his men might offset the heavier guns of his enemy, and Perry meant to come to close quarters. The Lawrence was soon a wreck, with only twenty men on board unhurt, and Perry transferring himself and his flag to the Niagara, through a storm of shot. Then with consummate seamanship he brought his fleet to where their broadsides "tore hulls clean of masts and decks," and Barclay surrendered the tiny British fleet--a drove of shattered, blood-drenched wrecks, laden with the mangled bodies of one-third of their crews. "We have met the enemy, and they are ours," Perry wrote laconically to Congress, while the United States went wild with joy, and Washington Irving writing what his countrymen believed, said, "The last roar of the cannon that died along Lake Erie's shore was the expiring note of British domination on this continent." But Canada didn't see it that way. Her people were sorry for the loss of the fleet, with the guns they could not possibly replace--and more sorry when Detroit fell, and two thousand more were added to the British prisoners of war in the States; but they thought it no reason for them to "give up the ship." So, while American newspapers raged against their stubbornness, they went on fighting as if nothing had happened. Perhaps the results of the battle were more felt in England than Canada. There men realized that Perry's victory was really the victory of the best seaman, and it made them inclined to consider the wisdom of coming some day to an understanding with this arrogant young Republic, who seemed willing--and perhaps was able--to meet them on the seas they looked on as their own. An American letter brought the news at last to York. It was to Bee, and told of Edgar being again a prisoner of war, and that Eli, seriously wounded in the lake fight, had been brought to Newark, and wanted his sister to come to him. So Bee and Betty, with the baby, and Chloe, and Mrs. Ferguson, sailed across Ontario. Betty was glad that it was not to Kingston; she was relieved at Bee's quiet acceptance of the plan to marry her cousin (as she supposed) but she did not want to hurry the marriage. Let Vere show himself to be a man indeed before this child was given him, she thought. Bee had forgotten marriage all those weeks that her brother was in danger. She told him, "I can't marry an Englishman or Canadian, when they are trying to kill you."