With a light breeze and working to windward, Perry's ship moved to intercept the British squadron which lay in column, topsails aback and waiting. The American brigs were fanned ahead by the air which breathed in their lofty canvas, but the schooners were almost becalmed and four of them straggled in the rear, their crews tugging at the long sweeps or oars. Two of the faster of these, the _Scorpion_ and the _Ariel_, were slipping along in the van where they supported the American flagship _Lawrence_, and Perry had no intention of delaying for the others to come up. Shortly before noon Barclay opened the engagement with the long guns of the _Detroit_, but as yet Perry was unable to reach his opponent and made more sail on the _Lawrence_ in order to get close. The British gunners of the _Detroit_ were already finding the target, and Perry discovered that the _Lawrence_ was difficult to handle with much of her rigging shot away. He ranged ahead until his ship was no more than two hundred and fifty yards from the _Detroit_. Even then the distance was greater than desirable for the main battery of carronades. A good golfer can drive his tee shot as far as the space of water which separated these two indomitable flagships as they fought. It was a different kind of naval warfare from that of today in which superdreadnaughts score hits at battle ranges of twelve and fourteen miles. Perry's plans were now endangered by the failure of his other heavy ship, the _Niagara_, to take care of her own adversary, the _Queen Charlotte_, which forged ahead and took a station where her broadsides helped to reduce the _Lawrence_ to a mass of wreckage. A bitter dispute which challenged the courage and judgment of Commander Elliott of the _Niagara_ was the aftermath of this flaw in the conduct of the battle. It was charged that he failed to go to the support of his commander-in-chief when the flagship was being destroyed under his eyes. The facts admit of no doubt: he dropped astern and for two hours remained scarcely more than a spectator of a desperate action in which his ship was sorely needed, whereas if he had followed the order to close up, the _Lawrence_ need never have struck to the enemy. In his defense he stated that lack of wind had prevented him from drawing ahead to engage and divert the _Queen Charlotte_ and that he had been instructed to hold a certain position in line. At the time Perry found no fault with him, merely setting down in his report that "at half-past two, the wind springing up, Captain Elliott was enabled to bring his vessel, the _Niagara_, gallantly into close action." Later Perry formulated charges against his second in command, accusing him of having kept on a course "which would in a few minutes have carried said vessel entirely out of action." These documents were pigeonholed and a Court of Inquiry commended Elliott as a brave and skillful officer who had gained laurels in that "splendid victory."