"'Stay here no longer—though I would have you with me.'"
There was more rushing and shouting from the decks above. Cox hastened up as fast as his weakened limbs would carry him. It was hand to hand now; cutlasses plying, men stabbing on the decks, growling and grovelling in their blood like fighting dogs. There was a party making an onslaught toward the bows. Cox drew his sword and joined them. The first thing he knew, they were slashing at him with their heavy blades. They were Englishmen! He did not know his own crew by sight. The firing had stopped; the summer breeze was blowing the smoke away. But what a sight and what a sound! The battered, reddened hulls, and the groans that rose in chorus! Of the further details there is little to relate. Poor Ludlow was killed at last by a cutlass in the hands of a British sailor; for after the flag had been hauled down, a second action had been started by a hot-headed boy firing at a British sentry placed at the gangway. The English, by mistake, had hoisted the captured flag uppermost, but it was soon discovered and hauled down again—the fight was over. The Chesapeake has been reckoned one of England's dearest prizes.
The sorrowful news of her defeat was carried quickly into Boston. The wise ones wagged their heads again. At the house of the Commandant of the navy yard at Charlestown, Bainbridge paced the room alone, deep lines of grief marking his rugged face, and on the floor above, a young girl lay insensible, for the word as first brought was that with the other officers James Cox had had his death. Captain Broke, the Englishman, had fought a gallant, manly fight, all honor to him! He was badly wounded, and, like poor Lawrence, it was thought that he would die. The latter, when he had heard the firing cease, had said to the surgeon:—
"Run to the deck. Tell them not to strike the colors! While I live they shall wave!" Brave Lawrence! They were the last words he ever spoke. Although he lingered four long suffering days, not a sound passed his lips. Broke, on the contrary, was raving in a delirium, and these were the words he kept repeating—words he must have spoken before the action had begun:—
"See the brave fellow! How grandly he brings his ship along! How gallantly he comes to action!"
Ah, how Halifax rejoiced when the Shannon sailed in there with a Yankee frigate under her lee. How the guns boomed, and how the city went mad with joy! And how England rejoiced, and the "Thunderer" thundered and the king clapped his hands! And how much they made of it! How proudly they preserved every relic of the captured ship! How they cherished her figurehead and exhibited her logbook! And they builded her timbers into an old mill, where they can show them to you to-day, scarred with cannon shot.
Yes, and how America lamented! Aye, and grew angry in her distress and cried for vengeance! Many times during the trial which followed in the investigation of the causes for the vessel's loss and capture, must have young James Cox wished that he were dead, that it had been he the British cutlasses and musket-balls had hacked to pieces. The navy had lost a ship in single combat,—the press and the authorities did not like that,—some one must suffer. What excuse was there that could hold good? said they—the great public which clamored for a reason. And so in the flush of the hot feeling he was sentenced by court martial; sentenced and disgraced. The charge of cowardice was disproved. From that he was exonerated—he had been wounded. But why had he not cut down the men as they left their guns? (one man against fifty, forsooth!) Why had he left the deck and gone below? Why had he stayed for one moment's time at the side of his dying friend and leader? And so he was made the scapegoat, although if he had been six men or ten, he could not have prevented what had happened. What is the use of "ifs"? The best ship had won. But when the trial was over, two hearts were broken. The young officer was execrated by those that did not know, and yet who talk and write. Could he dare just then to ask a woman's hand?
The navy pitied him, the scapegoat of the Chesapeake. How he petitioned to be given a chance to win back his fair name, and how often it was denied him! The members of the court that sentenced him wrote kindly letters almost without exception. But even the brave Decatur did not dare to help him—public opinion is more formidable to face than an armed ship. And so James Cox, maybe in the hope that an honorable death would visit him, shouldered a musket and fought as a common soldier in the ranks on land.
And when the war was over, he sought refuge in the new country of the west, where perhaps they would not know. And there he lived and died; died an old man, honored and respected by his neighbors. But those that loved him marvelled at one thing; he never smiled. And even his grandchildren (for he married late in life) knew not that he had once been a gay young lieutenant with a shining epaulet on his left shoulder. They never heard that he had started one fine June day to find glory and fame; and that death had come near to him but passed him by, which he had more than once regretted bitterly.