The _Constitution_ also has her losses. Bainbridge himself is severely wounded, but he still keeps the deck. Brave Aylwin, who already wears a wound stripe for the _Guerriere_ battle, is again shot down. This will be the last fight for him. Well, he will live long enough to see a second British frigate lower her battle flags. Over thirty others lie dead or wounded about the decks or under the surgeon’s knife in the cockpit. British frigates cannot be taken without losing men. For two long hours the battle rages. Chads does well but he cannot do the impossible. Finally the _Java_ must give in. Here is a fight in which there is honor enough for all, vanquished as well as victor. And Bainbridge, after such buffets of fate as few have received, at last has won his well-deserved victory. A third British frigate had been taken. When “Old Ironsides” reached Boston a great reception awaited the commodore. There he marched through the streets, arm in arm with Rodgers and Hull—three commodores of whom any country might be proud. Fifes and drums played _Yankee-Doodle_ as the procession moved through the streets. It was a big Navy Day! SCENE III. THE LAST FIGHT The _Constitution_ took a long rest after this battle. The _Java’s_ shot had discovered some rotten spots in her sides. A long overhaul was required to make her again ready for sea. Meanwhile the Navy had won many a victory and had suffered some defeats. Our little sloops-of-war won a long succession of splendid successes. Gallant James Lawrence, hero of the _Hornet-Peacock_ fight, lost the _Chesapeake_ to the British frigate _Shannon_—crying, as he lay dying, “Don’t give up the ship!” Sewing this motto on his blue battle flag Perry annihilated the British squadron on Lake Erie. Macdonough saved the northern frontier with a complete victory on Lake Champlain, which a British marine thought more desperately fought than Trafalgar. Our privateers were gathering in their prizes on every sea in constantly increasing numbers and sending the insurance rates three times higher than all previous levels. [Illustration: Close combat] But the war could not well end without a third victory by the _Constitution_. Now she was commanded by Charles Stewart, a worthy successor to Hull and Bainbridge. On February 20, 1815, north of Madeira, the American frigate came in contact with the British corvette _Cyane_, thirty-four guns, and the sloop _Levant_, twenty-one. Their fifty-five guns threw a slightly heavier weight of metal, but their armament consisted mostly of short-range carronades which could not be compared with the terrible long 24’s which filled the _Constitution’s_ gun-deck ports. Still the two Britons formed column and accepted Stewart’s challenge.