_From an engraving at the Navy Department, Washington._] A song that was published in the British _Naval Chronicle_ some months before the battle contained this stanza: And as the war they did provoke, We’ll pay them with our cannon; The first to do it will be Broke. In the gallant ship the Shannon. The British Historians unite in asserting that this battle proved conclusively that “if the odds were anything like equal, a British frigate could always whip an American, and that in a hand-to-hand conflict such would invariably be the case.” A French historian, who is accepted as authority by all nations, says of this action: “Captain Broke had commanded the _Shannon_ for nearly seven years; Captain Lawrence had commanded the _Chesapeake_ for but a few days. The _Shannon_ had cruised for eighteen months on the coast of America; the _Chesapeake_ was newly out of harbor. The _Shannon_ had a crew long accustomed to habits of strict obedience; the _Chesapeake_ was manned by men who had just been engaged in mutiny. The Americans were wrong to accuse Fortune on this occasion. Fortune was not fickle, she was merely logical. The _Shannon_ captured the _Chesapeake_ on June 1, 1813, but on September 14, 1806, when he took command of his frigate, Captain Broke began to prepare the glorious termination of the bloody affair.” Ye sons of old Neptune, whose spirits of steel In tempests were hardened, by peril were tempered, Whose limbs, whose limbs like the wild winds that sweep the bare keel, By fetters of tyrants shall never be hamper’d; ’Mid the storm and the flood Still your honors shall bud, And bloom with fresh fragrance though nurtured with blood; For the tars of Columbia are lords of the wave, And have sworn that the ocean’s their throne or their grave! The chiefs who our freedom sustain’d on the land FAME’S far-spreading voice has eterniz’d in story; By the roar of our cannon now called to the strand She beholds on the ocean their rivals in glory, Her sons there she owns, And her clarion’s bold tones Tell of Hull and Decatur, of Bainbridge and Jones; For the tars of Columbia are lords of the wave, And have sworn that old ocean’s their home or their grave! She speaks, too, of Lawrence, the merciful brave, Whose body in death still his flag nobly shielded; With his blood he serenely encrimsoned the wave, And surrendered his life but his ship never yielded; His spirit still soars Where the sea-battle roars And proclaims to the nations of earth’s farthest shores, That the tars of Columbia are lords of the wave, And have sworn that old ocean’s their home or their grave! [Illustration: In Memory of Captain James Lawrence. _From an old engraving._] CHAPTER XI THE PRIVATEERS OF 1812