Seeing that the spar-deck of the _Chesapeake_ was devoid of defenders, a party of the _Shannon’s_ men took advantage of a favorable chance, and, without waiting for orders, jumped on the American’s deck. Captain Lawrence, still leaning heavily against the rail, and weak from loss of blood, had scarcely time to call his boarders to repel the attack when he received a second wound, from a bullet, in the abdomen. He fell into the arms of Lieutenant Cox, who commanded the second division, and was hurrying up from below. At this moment Captain Broke, of the _Shannon_, bravely headed a second boarding party, and sprang over the railing of the _Chesapeake_. Lawrence saw the danger as he struggled, with Cox’s help, to rise from the deck. “Don’t give up the ship! don’t give up the ship!” he said, and repeated it over and over as they carried him down the companion-way. A hand-to-hand struggle now ensued. The only American officer remaining on the upper deck was Lieutenant Ludlow. He was so weakened and disabled by numerous wounds that he was incapable of personal resistance, and the small number of British succeeded in obtaining possession before those from below could swarm up to the defence. An account gathered from an officer after the surrender speaks as follows: “We were greatly embarrassed in consequence of being unacquainted with our crew. In one instance, in particular, Lieutenant Cox joined a party of the enemy through mistake, and was made sensible of his error by their slashing at him with their cutlasses.” Lawrence, lying below in the wardroom, suffering agony, heard the firing cease, and, having no officer near him, he ordered the surgeon who was attending his wound to hasten on deck and tell his followers to fight on to the last, and never strike the colors, adding: “They shall wave while I live.” But nothing could be done. A ship without a captain is a man without a soul. The fate of battle was decided. It was mere waste of life to continue, and Lieutenant Ludlow gave up the _Chesapeake_. There was the utmost confusion during the latter part of the battle, but accounts differ in regard to the details. A hot-headed boy fired at an English sentry placed at a gangway, and started an action that resulted in Lieutenant Ludlow receiving a cutlass wound in the head which fractured his skull and proved fatal. An English authority, in speaking of the hauling down of the stars and stripes, recalls that Lieutenant Wall, one of their own officers, was killed, and four or five men fell, from a volley delivered by their own people from the tops of the _Shannon_, “for in the hurry and excitement the Yankee flag was hoisted uppermost.” Thus terminated one of the most remarkable combats on naval record. The action had lasted over a quarter of an hour. There is little use in surmising what might have occurred had not the ships run foul of each other.