On March 16th, Lieutenant Perry set out for Lake Erie. Upon reaching the harbor at Erie he found that twenty-five ship carpenters had already begun work on three gunboats and two brigs. Fifty more carpenters had started four weeks before from Philadelphia, but had not yet arrived. The task which lay before Oliver Perry seemed almost an impossible one. Mechanics, seamen, guns, sailcloth,--everything needed for the ships must be brought hundreds of miles through a wild and half-settled country. But by the end of the summer, a fleet, which seemed to have been built by magic, was ready to meet the English. Six months before, the timbers used in building the vessels had been growing trees; the iron that held these timbers together was either in the mines or in warehouses or farmers' barns, in the shape of plowshares, axes, or horseshoes. The shipbuilders had come through the wilderness from Philadelphia. The guns, ammunition, and rigging had been brought in ox-wagons, hundreds of miles over almost impassable roads. While Perry was building this fleet, a sad event had taken place on the sea. The British frigate _Shannon_ met and captured the American frigate _Chesapeake_, June 1, 1813, near Boston harbor. [Illustration: CAPTAIN JAMES LAWRENCE.] Captain Lawrence of the _Chesapeake_ fought bravely, but, in the battle, was mortally wounded. As he was being carried below, his last words were: "Don't give up the ship!" The Secretary of the Navy sent word to Lieutenant Perry to name one of the vessels of his new fleet the _Lawrence_, after this gallant captain. Lieutenant Perry therefore gave this name to his flagship. By the 10th of July the fleet was ready for sea, but there were only officers and men enough to man one ship. Several of these were ill with fever. Lieutenant Perry wrote many letters to General Harrison, Commodore Chauncey, and the Secretary of the Navy. "Give me men, and I will acquire both for you and for myself honor and glory on this lake, or die in the attempt," he said. By the end of July he had over four hundred men for his nine vessels. But, as he said, they were a "motley crew" of regular soldiers, negroes, and raw recruits. During the battle which followed, over a hundred of these men were too sick to be of any use. The English fleet of six vessels was commanded by Captain Barclay. In his crews were over five hundred men and boys. IX.--"WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND THEY ARE OURS." Early in August the American squadron left the harbor of Erie, and sailed to Put-in-Bay, an island not far from the west end of the lake. The British squadron was in the harbor of Fort Malden, nearly opposite on the Canadian shore. On the morning of September 10, 1813, from the masthead of the _Lawrence_, the English fleet was seen approaching. As the Americans were sailing out to battle, Lieutenant Perry gathered his men together and talked to them about the courage they would need.