Shortly after this adventure, the good citizens of Salem were thrown into a high state of excitement by the noise of a heavy cannonading. A general rush took place from all quarters towards the Neck. I followed with the rest. We found it to be occasioned by the engagement between the _Chesapeake_ and _Shannon_, in compliance with a challenge, sent by the latter, which was accepted by Captain Lawrence, of the former. The result is well known. After a short action, the _Chesapeake_ struck to the _Shannon_, and was carried away by the victors, in triumph, to Halifax. One reason for the defeat of the American frigate, may perhaps be found in the fact that her crew were newly shipped; some of them were volunteer landsmen, while none of them had what sailors call their sea-legs on. No ship is fit for action until she has been at sea at least a month. In this action the captain, first lieutenant, and several men, were killed. Mr. George Crowninshield sent a vessel to Halifax for the bodies of those gallant officers; they were interred in Salem with naval honors. My cousin, having now reached home, was desirous to have me devote myself to some business. He proposed that of a sailmaker; but by this time I had quite a desire to go to sea again. The _Constitution_, the _Frolic_ sloop of war, and the gun brig _Siren_, were all shipping hands in Boston. My feelings inclined me towards old _Ironsides_; but my cousin, having sailed with Captain Parker,[18] of the _Siren_, recommended that officer so strongly, that I was induced to join his ship, in company with the quartermaster and several of the former hands of the _United States_. My cousin also overruled my design of shipping in a false name; so that, in defiance of my fears, I suffered myself to be entered as Samuel Leech, on the books of the U. S. brig _Siren_, of sixteen guns. The payment of three months’ advance, with the sum I brought with me from New York, enabled me honorably to discharge my board bills at my cousin’s, and to purchase a little clothing necessary to fit me for sea. I was then in the seventeenth year of my life. Once more in a man of war, my seriousness all vanished like mist before the sun. Alas, it was poor soil to nourish the seed of life! barren of everything that related to purity, religion, and immortality. My first impressions of the American service were very favorable. The treatment in the _Siren_ was more lenient and favorable than in the _Macedonian_. The captain and officers were kind, while there was a total exemption from that petty tyranny exercised by the upstart midshipmen in the British service. As a necessary effect, our crew were as comfortable and as happy as men ever are in a man of war.