ith the heavy recoil, and plunged into the
main hatch. Silenced, shot through and through, her decks strewn with
dead, the _Saratoga_ might then have struck her colors with honor. But
Macdonough had not begun to fight. Prepared for such an emergency, he
let go a stern anchor, cut his bow cable, and "winded" or turned his
ship around so that her other side with its uninjured row of guns was
presented to the _Confiance_. Captain Downie had by this time been
killed, and the acting commander of the British flagship endeavored to
execute the same maneuver, but the _Confiance_ was too badly crippled to
be swung about. While she floundered, the Saratoga reduced her to
submission. One of the surviving officers stated that "the ship's
company declared they would no longer stand to their quarters nor could
the officers with their utmost exertions rally them." The ship was
sinking, with more than a hundred ragged holes in her hull and fivescore
men dead or hurt. Fifteen minutes later the plucky _Linnet_ surrendered
after a long and desperate duel with the _Eagle_. The British galleys
escaped from the bay under sail and oar because no American ships were
fit to chase them, but the Royal Navy had ceased to exist on Lake
Champlain. For more than two hours the battle had been fought with a
bulldog endurance not often equaled in the grim pages of naval history.
And more nearly than any other incident of the War of 1812 it could be
called decisive.

The American victory made the position of Prevost's army wholly
untenable. With the control of Lake Champlain in Macdonough's hands, the
British line of communication would be continually menaced. For the ten
thousand veterans of Wellington's campaigns there was nothing to do but
retreat, nor did they linger until they had marched across the Canada
border. Though the way had lain open before them, they had not fought a
battle, but were turned out of the United States, evicted, one might
say, by a few small ships manned by several hundred American sailors. As
Perry had regained the vast Northwest for his nation so, more
momentously, did Macdonough avert from New York and New England a tide
of invasion which could not otherwise have been stemmed.

[Illustration: _THOMAS MACDONOUGH_

Painting by J. W. Jarvis. In the City Hall, New York, owned by the
Corporation. Reproduced by courtesy of the Municipal Art Commission of
the City of New York.]

[Illustration: _JACOB BROWN_

Painting by J. W