During an instant the full significance of this act escaped me. I stood, with my arm linked in Alec’s, wondering what it all meant, when a great cheer rose from round about us, echoed by the crews of all the other vessels near at hand.
Then we knew that the Detroit, like the Lawrence, was out of the fight.
“We have whipped one of them!” Alec cried in glee, clapping his blood-stained hands childishly. “Commodore Barclay’s ship has given up the fight, and now we shall see if he has pluck enough to transfer his flag in the heat of battle, as did my brother!”
At that instant, and when the crew of every gun was working with feverish haste to reload that they might take advantage of this first sign of submission, there came from the quarterdeck the command, loud, triumphant, and cheery:—
“Hold your fire, lads! The enemy is whipped!”
I wondered that our commodore could be so sanguine, for it seemed to me the Britishers would not admit themselves beaten until every craft was disabled; but, involuntarily glancing toward the right, I saw the cross of St. George being lowered from the masthead of the Queen Charlotte, and almost before I could call Alec’s attention to the fact, every vessel in all that squadron, excepting the Little Belt and the Chippewa, were showing the same signs of submission.
It seemed incredible that we should have won the fight after having suffered such loss as had been inflicted upon the Lawrence.
It was impossible for the moment to believe that this British squadron, whose commander had claimed he need only “come out and show himself in order to send the Yankees to their knees,” had surrendered to a force much smaller than his own, and without discipline!
Even when I could realize that we had earned the victory,—bought it by the blood of those brave fellows whom I had seen lying in the cockpit of the Lawrence,—it was difficult to understand, even though we had fought so valiantly, how it all came about.
We were the victors in the first naval engagement fought on the lakes.