This enterprise having been abandoned, the fleet anchored at Put-in Bay once more on August 27th, and there a reinforcement of thirty-six soldiers came on board from General Harrison to act as marines and supply the places of the sick. But Perry remained sick for a week, and it was not until September 1st that the squadron got away to look at Malden. They got nothing more than a look, for the reason that Captain Barclay kept his fleet under the protection of the shore batteries, waiting for the completion of the _Detroit_. So Perry returned once more to Put-in Bay, and there he remained until September 10, 1813, the most famous date in the history of the Great Lakes, for then came the battle known to every school-boy as “Perry’s Victory.” Because this was a battle between squadrons, and the first of that kind in American history, it is worth while considering in advance of the story of the action, what each commander had under him. To begin with the Americans: Perry had nine vessels--the brigs _Lawrence_, _Niagara_, and _Caledonia_, the schooners _Ariel_, _Scorpion_, _Somers_, _Porcupine_, and _Tigress_, and the sloop (single-masted vessel) _Trippe_. The big new brigs were one hundred and ten feet long and twenty-nine feet wide. They could have carried as merchantmen three hundred tons say of coal or grain. The schooners could not have carried more than from sixty to eighty tons of cargo, and the sloop was the smallest of all. The big brigs were armed as salt-sea brigs were--with two long twelves and eighteen short thirty-twos, and the rest were armed with a heavy gun each, so that the squadron as a whole in the battle threw, it is estimated, eight hundred and ninety-six pounds of metal from fifty-four guns, of which the long guns threw two hundred and eighty-eight pounds. On the day of battle, according to the roll that drew prize-money, the total number of all the men and boys who were connected with the fleet in any way was five hundred and thirty-two. Of these, four hundred and sixteen (the highest estimate) were on deck ready for the fray, and sixteen more (according to Lossing), though on the sick-list, left their beds and went to quarters--in all four hundred and thirty-two men, of whom one-fourth were regular naval seamen, one-fourth were raw militia, and one-fourth were lake sailors.