was still near enough an hour later to see the two ships locked side by
side, that a fearful explosion had happened aboard the _Chesapeake_, and
that through a rift in the battle smoke he had beheld the British flag
flying above the American frigate.

This report was confirmed by a fishing boat from Cape Ann and by the
passengers in a coastwise packet, but the public doubted and still hoped
until the newspapers came from Halifax with an account of the arrival of
the _Chesapeake_ as prize to the _Shannon_ and of the funeral honors
paid to the body of Captain James Lawrence. The tragic defeat came at an
extremely dark moment of the war when almost every expectation had been
disappointed and the future was clouded. Richard Rush, the American
diplomatist, wrote, recalling the event:

I remember--what American does not!--the first rumor of it. I
remember the startling sensation. I remember at first the universal
incredulity. I remember how the post-offices were thronged for
successive days by anxious thousands; how collections of citizens
rode out for miles on the highway, accosting the mail to catch
something by anticipation. At last, when the certainty was known, I
remember the public gloom; funeral orations and badges of mourning
bespoke it. "Don't give up the ship"--the dying words of
Lawrence--were on every tongue.

It was learned that the _Chesapeake_ had followed the _Shannon_ until
five o'clock, when the latter luffed and showed her readiness to begin
fighting. Lawrence was given the choice of position, with a westerly
breeze, but he threw away this advantage, preferring to trust to his
guns with a green crew rather than the complex and delicate business of
maneuvering his ship under sail. He came bowling straight down at the
_Shannon_, luffed in his turn, and engaged her at a distance of fifty
yards. The breeze was strong and the nimble American frigate forged
ahead more rapidly than Lawrence expected, so that presently her
broadside guns had ceased to bear.

While Lawrence was trying to slacken headway and regain the desired
position, the enemy's shot disabled his headsails, and the _Chesapeake_
came up into the wind with canvas all a-flutter. It was a mishap which a
crew of trained seamen might have quickly mended, but the frigate was
taken aback--that is, the breeze drove her stern foremost toward the
_Shannon_ and exposed her to a deadly cannonade which the America