When Lawrence returned from the cruise on the coast of South America he applied to the Secretary of the Navy for the command of the _Constitution_. After some correspondence his request was granted, and then the order was recalled, and he was sent, very much against his will, to the _Chesapeake_. His dislike for the _Chesapeake_ will be very well understood by any sailor when it is recalled that she was the unlucky ship of the navy. She had sailed from Boston under Captain Evans, on December 13, 1812, and had arrived back on April 9, 1813. She had captured five merchantmen, and had escaped when chased by a British seventy-four and a frigate, but that was all she had done. On reaching port there was trouble in her crew over the payment of the prize money, and most of them left her, the two years for which they had shipped being ended. Evans left her because of trouble with his eyes. It would have been better for her new commander if more of the crew had left, for of those who stayed not a few were foreigners, and these were under the influence of a Portuguese boatswain’s mate. That a Portuguese, of all nationalities, should have been trusted even with a petty office shows to an American sailor the character of the crew whom Lawrence found on board. Among other foreigners, too, were thirty-two of English birth. The exact day when Lawrence arrived is not recorded, but he did not leave the _Hornet_ in New York until after May 10th, and that was in the time of stage coaches. It was at about the middle of May that he took command. A still further indication of the condition of affairs on board is found in the fact that Acting-Lieutenant Pierce was allowed to leave the ship, as Lawrence explained it, because of “his being at variance with every officer in his mess.”