The issue was threshed out by naval experts who violently disagreed, but there was glory enough for all and the flag had suffered no stain. Certain it is that the battle would have lacked its most brilliantly dramatic episode if Perry had not been compelled to shift his pennant from the blazing hulk of the _Lawrence_ and, from the quarter-deck of the _Niagara_, to renew the conflict, rally his vessels, and snatch a triumph from the shadow of disaster. It was one of the great moments in the storied annals of the American navy, comparable with a John Paul Jones shouting "_We have not yet begun to fight!_" from the deck of the shattered, water-logged _Bon Homme Richard_, or a Farragut lashed in the rigging and roaring "_Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!_" Because of the failure of Elliott to bring the _Niagara_ into action at once, as had been laid down in the plan of battle, Perry found himself in desperate straits aboard the beaten _Lawrence_. Her colors still flew but she could fire only one gun of her whole battery, and more than half the ship's company had been killed or wounded--eighty-three men out of one hundred and forty-two. It was impossible to steer or handle her and she drifted helpless. Then it was that Perry, seeing the laggard _Niagara_ close at hand, ordered a boat away and was transferred to a ship which was still fit and ready to continue the action. As soon as he had left them, the survivors of the _Lawrence_ hauled down their flag in token of surrender, for there was nothing else for them to do. As soon as he jumped on deck, Perry took command of the _Niagara_, sending Elliott off to bring up the rearmost schooners. There was no lagging or hesitation now. With topgallant sails sheeted home, the _Niagara_ bore down upon the _Detroit_, driven by a freshening breeze. Barclay's crippled flagship tried to avoid being raked and so fouled her consort, the _Queen Charlotte_. The two British ships lay locked together while the American guns pounded them with terrific fire. Presently they got clear of each other and pluckily attempted to carry on the fight. But the odds were hopeless. The officer whose painful duty it was to signal the surrender of the _Detroit_ said of this British flagship: "The ship lying completely unmanageable, every brace cut away, the mizzen-topmast and gaff down, all the other masts badly wounded, not a stay left forward, hull shattered very much, a number of guns disabled, and the enemy's squadron raking both ships ahead and astern, none of our own in a position to support us, I was under the painful necessity of answering the enemy to say we had struck, the _Queen Charlotte_ having previously done so."