s greater than desirable for the main battery of carronades.
A good golfer can drive his tee shot as far as the space of water which
separated these two indomitable flagships as they fought. It was a
different kind of naval warfare from that of today in which
superdreadnaughts score hits at battle ranges of twelve and fourteen
miles.

Perry's plans were now endangered by the failure of his other heavy
ship, the _Niagara_, to take care of her own adversary, the _Queen
Charlotte_, which forged ahead and took a station where her broadsides
helped to reduce the _Lawrence_ to a mass of wreckage. A bitter dispute
which challenged the courage and judgment of Commander Elliott of the
_Niagara_ was the aftermath of this flaw in the conduct of the battle.
It was charged that he failed to go to the support of his
commander-in-chief when the flagship was being destroyed under his eyes.
The facts admit of no doubt: he dropped astern and for two hours
remained scarcely more than a spectator of a desperate action in which
his ship was sorely needed, whereas if he had followed the order to
close up, the _Lawrence_ need never have struck to the enemy.

In his defense he stated that lack of wind had prevented him from
drawing ahead to engage and divert the _Queen Charlotte_ and that he had
been instructed to hold a certain position in line. At the time Perry
found no fault with him, merely setting down in his report that "at
half-past two, the wind springing up, Captain Elliott was enabled to
bring his vessel, the _Niagara_, gallantly into close action." Later
Perry formulated charges against his second in command, accusing him of
having kept on a course "which would in a few minutes have carried said
vessel entirely out of action." These documents were pigeonholed and a
Court of Inquiry commended Elliott as a brave and skillful officer who
had gained laurels in that "splendid victory."

The issue was threshed out by naval experts who violently disagreed, but
there was glory enough for all and the flag had suffered no stain.
Certain it is that the battle would have lacked its most brilliantly
dramatic episode if Perry had not been compelled to shift his pennant
from the blazing hulk of the _Lawrence_ and, from the quarter-deck of
the _Niagara_, to renew the conflict, rally his vessels, and snatch a
triumph from the shadow of disaster. It was one of the great moments in
the storied annals of the American navy, comparable with a John Pau