“For two hours the gallant Perry and his devoted ship bore the brunt of the battle with twice his force, aided only by the schooners on his weather bow and some feeble shots from the distant _Caledonia_, when she could spare time from her adversary, the _Hunter_. During that tempest of war his vessel was terribly shattered. Her rigging was nearly all shot away; her sails were torn in shreds; her spars were battered into splinters; her guns were dismounted; and she lay upon the waters almost a helpless wreck. “The carnage on her deck had been terrible. Out of one hundred and three sound men that composed her officers and crew when she went into action, twenty-two were slain and sixty-one were wounded. Perry’s little brother had been struck down by a splinter at his side, but soon recovered.... “While the _Lawrence_ was being thus terribly smitten, officers and crew were anxiously wondering why the _Niagara_--the swift, stanch, well-manned _Niagara_--kept aloof, not only from her prescribed antagonist, the _Queen Charlotte_, now battling the _Lawrence_, but the other assailants of the flag-ship. Her commander himself had passed the order for close conflict, yet he kept far away; and when afterward censured, he pleaded, in justification of his course, his perfect obedience to the original order to keep at ‘half cable length behind the _Caledonia_ on the line.’ It may be said that his orders to fight the _Queen Charlotte_, who had left _her_ line and gone into the thickest of the fight with the _Lawrence_ and her supporting schooners, were quite as imperative, and that it was his duty to follow. This he did not do until the guns of the _Lawrence_ became silent, and no signals were displayed by, nor special orders came from Perry. These significant tokens of dissolution doubtless made Elliott believe that the commodore was slain, and he himself had become the chief commander of the squadron. “He then hailed the _Caledonia_, and ordered Lieutenant Turner to leave the line and bear down upon the _Hunter_ for close conflict, giving the _Niagara_ a chance to pass for the relief of the _Lawrence_. The gallant Turner instantly obeyed, and the _Caledonia_ fought her adversary nobly. The _Niagara_ spread her canvas before a freshening breeze that had just sprung up; but, instead of going to the relief of the _Lawrence_, thus silently pleading for protection, she bore away toward the head of the enemy’s squadron, passing the American flag-ship to the windward, and leaving her exposed to the still galling fire of the enemy, because, as was alleged in extenuation of this apparent violation of the rules of naval warfare and the claims of humanity, both squadrons had caught the breeze and moved forward, and left the crippled vessel floating astern.” It was only by the cessation of the shocks which told of the brig’s having been struck by a ball that we on board knew the enemy was moving forward, leaving us little else than a hulk upon the waters.