consisting of six vessels, formed in lines of battle. At a quarter before 12, Captain Barclay's ship, the _Queen Charlotte_, opened a tremendous fire upon the _Lawrence_, the flag ship of Commodore Perry. The _Lawrence_ was torn to pieces. She became unmanageable. Except the Commodore and four or five others, every man on board was either killed or wounded. Perry abandoned her, and the colours were hauled down; but he only left one ship to rehoist his flag in another, as yet untouched. He boarded the _Niagara_, of twenty guns, and a breeze springing up behind his ships, which as yet had not been in action, he obtained the weather gage of the British, and made it necessary for them to wear round. It was in the endeavour to execute this manoeuvre that Barclay lost the advantage. His inexperienced and, therefore, somewhat awkward sailors, became flurried, and the vessels fell foul of each other. They were for the most part jammed together, with their bows facing the enemy's broadside. Captain Perry saw his advantage and raked the _Detroit_, the _Queen Charlotte_, and _Lady Prevost_, at pleasure. The _Chippewa_ and _Little Belt_ had been separated from the other ships, and were hotly engaged by the Americans. The British line was, in a word, broken. The carnage was now dreadful, and the result awfully disastrous to the British. Barclay fell, severely wounded. Every officer was either killed or wounded. And two hundred out of three hundred and forty-five men were in a like condition. For three hours the battle raged, but at the end of that time the British squadron was capsized, and Perry, in imitation of Julius Caesar, sent the message to Washington:--"We have met the enemy, and they are ours." Of the Americans, twenty-seven were killed and ninety-six wounded.