esource, making a very formidable combination; and up to the June
morning when the _Shannon_ was waiting outside Boston Harbour for the
_Chesapeake_, the naval honours of the war belonged to the Americans.
The Americans had no fleet, and the campaign was one of single ship
against single ship, but in these combats the Americans had scored more
successes in twelve months than French seamen had gained in twelve
years. The _Guerriere_, the _Java_, and the _Macedonian_ had each been
captured in single combat, and every British post-captain betwixt
Portsmouth and Halifax was swearing with mere fury.

The Americans were shrewd enough to invent a new type of frigate which,
in strength of frame, weight of metal, and general fighting power, was
to a British frigate of the same class almost what an ironclad would be
to a wooden ship. The _Constitution_, for example, was in size to the
average British frigate as 15.3 to 10.9; in weight of metal as 76 to
51; and in crew as 46 to 25. Broke, however, had a well-founded belief
in his ship and his men, and he proposed, in his sober fashion, to
restore the tarnished honour of his flag by capturing single-handed the
best American frigate afloat.

The _Chesapeake_ was a fine ship, perfectly equipped, under a daring
and popular commander. Laurence was a man of brilliant ingenuity and
courage, and had won fame four months before by capturing in the
_Hornet_, after a hard fight, the British brig-of-war _Peacock_. For
this feat he had been promoted to the _Chesapeake_, and in his brief
speech from the quarterdeck just before the fight with the _Shannon_
began, he called up the memory of the fight which made him a popular
hero by exhorting his crew to "_Peacock_ her, my lads! _Peacock_ her!"
The _Chesapeake_ was larger than the _Shannon_, its crew was nearly a
hundred men stronger, its weight of fire 598 lbs. as against the
_Shannon's_ 538 lbs. Her guns fired double-headed shot, and bars of
wrought iron connected by links and loosely tied by a few rope yarns,
which, when discharged from the gun, spread out and formed a flying
iron chain six feet long. Its canister shot contained jagged pieces of
iron, broken bolts, and nails. As the British had a reputation for
boarding, a large barrel of unslacked lime was provided to fling in the
faces of the boarders. An early shot from the _Shannon_, by the way,
struck this cask of lime and scattered its contents in the faces of the
Americans th