The British hauled down the American flag, and then hoisted it again with a white flag to show their victory. But the sailor who did the work, by mistake got the white flag under the Stars and Stripes. When the gunners in the _Shannon_ saw the Yankee flag flying they fired again, and this time killed and wounded a number of their own men, one of them being an officer. [Illustration: "DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP!"] The gallant Lawrence never knew that his ship was lost. He lived until the _Shannon_ reached Halifax with her prize, but he became delirious, and kept repeating over and over again his last order--"_Don't give up the ship!_" With these words he died. With these words his memory has become immortal. "Don't give up the ship!" is the motto of the American navy, and will not be forgotten while our great Republic survives. So Captain Lawrence gained greater renown in defeat than most men have won in victory. The capture of the _Chesapeake_ was a piece of wonderful good fortune for the British, to judge by the way they boasted of it. As Captain Pearson had been made a knight for losing the _Serapis_, so Captain Broke was made a baronet for taking the _Chesapeake_. A "baronet," you must know, is a higher title than a "knight," though they both use the handle of "Sir" to their names. The work of the _Shannon_ proved--so the British historians said--that, "if the odds were anything like equal, a British frigate could always whip an American, and in a hand-to-hand conflict such would invariably be the case." Such things are easy to say, when one does not care about telling the truth. Suppose we give now what a French historian, who believed in telling the truth, said of this fight,-- "Captain Broke had commanded the _Shannon_ for nearly seven years; Captain Lawrence had commanded the _Chesapeake_ for but a few days. The _Shannon_ had cruised for eighteen months on the coast of America; the _Chesapeake_ was newly out of harbor. The _Shannon_ had a crew long accustomed to habits of strict obedience; the _Chesapeake_ was manned by men who had just been engaged in mutiny. The Americans were wrong to accuse fortune on this occasion. Fortune was not fickle, she was merely logical." That is about the same as to say that the _Chesapeake_ was given away to the enemy. After that there were no more ships sent out of port unfit to fight, merely to please the people. It was a lesson the people needed. The body of the brave Lawrence was laid on the quarter-deck of the _Chesapeake_ wrapped in an American flag. It was then placed in a coffin and taken ashore, where it was met by a regiment of British troops and a band that played the "Death March in Saul." The sword of the dead hero lay on his coffin. In the end his body was buried in the cemetery of Trinity Church, New York. A monument stands to-day over his grave, and on it are the words: