Recovering his wits, however, he returned to his gun. But another shot tore off the head of the gun captain and flung it in Macdonough's face with such force that he was hurled across the deck. At length all but one of the guns along the side exposed to the _Confiance_ had been smashed or dismounted, and this last gun broke its fastening bolts, leaped from its carriage with the heavy recoil, and plunged into the main hatch. Silenced, shot through and through, her decks strewn with dead, the _Saratoga_ might then have struck her colors with honor. But Macdonough had not begun to fight. Prepared for such an emergency, he let go a stern anchor, cut his bow cable, and "winded" or turned his ship around so that her other side with its uninjured row of guns was presented to the _Confiance_. Captain Downie had by this time been killed, and the acting commander of the British flagship endeavored to execute the same maneuver, but the _Confiance_ was too badly crippled to be swung about. While she floundered, the Saratoga reduced her to submission. One of the surviving officers stated that "the ship's company declared they would no longer stand to their quarters nor could the officers with their utmost exertions rally them." The ship was sinking, with more than a hundred ragged holes in her hull and fivescore men dead or hurt. Fifteen minutes later the plucky _Linnet_ surrendered after a long and desperate duel with the _Eagle_. The British galleys escaped from the bay under sail and oar because no American ships were fit to chase them, but the Royal Navy had ceased to exist on Lake Champlain. For more than two hours the battle had been fought with a bulldog endurance not often equaled in the grim pages of naval history. And more nearly than any other incident of the War of 1812 it could be called decisive. The American victory made the position of Prevost's army wholly untenable. With the control of Lake Champlain in Macdonough's hands, the British line of communication would be continually menaced. For the ten thousand veterans of Wellington's campaigns there was nothing to do but retreat, nor did they linger until they had marched across the Canada border. Though the way had lain open before them, they had not fought a battle, but were turned out of the United States, evicted, one might say, by a few small ships manned by several hundred American sailors. As Perry had regained the vast Northwest for his nation so, more momentously, did Macdonough avert from New York and New England a tide of invasion which could not otherwise have been stemmed. [Illustration: _THOMAS MACDONOUGH_ Painting by J. W. Jarvis. In the City Hall, New York, owned by the Corporation. Reproduced by courtesy of the Municipal Art Commission of the City of New York.] [Illustration: _JACOB BROWN_ Painting by J. W. Jarvis. In the City Hall, New York, owned by the Corporation. Reproduced by courtesy of the Municipal Art Commission of the City of New York.] CHAPTER X