Commodore Perry had earned for himself that fame and that glory which his brother predicted, and I was his brother’s friend.
Alec, delirious with joy, flung his arms around my neck as one British ensign after another fluttered down from its masthead, and we two danced here and there over the blood-stained deck, unconscious almost, that we were making such an exhibition of ourselves, until we saw the sailors—old men bleeding from wounds that needed a surgeon’s attention—hugging each other around the waist as they swung to and fro, cheering and yelling as if it were not possible to show their happiness save by movement and by noise.
The battle was ended, and Commodore Perry, Alec’s brother, was the one hero, to my eyes, among all who had proven their valor since the war began.
Here it is that my poor attempt at describing what befell my comrade and I while we served with Perry on Lake Erie, must come to an end, for the tale is done.
After a certain time I returned to my home at Presque Isle, and Alec accompanied his brother on what was little less than a triumphal tour to Washington.
Perhaps it is well to gather up the scattered threads of the story by explaining, what is most likely known to every one who shall chance to read these lines, that before sunset the Little Belt and the Chippewa were captured by the Scorpion and the Trippe, and brought to an anchor under the stern of the Lawrence.
It was hardly more than half an hour from the time our commodore left the flag-ship, and the dying men in the cockpit were sorrowing because of what seemed defeat, when he went on board again.
There, among all the evidences of what had well-nigh been a disaster, he received the swords of the Britishers who had been worsted in a fair fight wherein the odds were in their favor.
The Lawrence had lowered her flag; but so hot had been the engagement immediately afterward that the enemy did not have an opportunity to take possession of her, and when we returned, for I accompanied Alec and our commodore, it was the same as if she had never submitted.
I have heard it said that never before had an American fleet or squadron encountered the enemy in regular line of battle, and never before, since England possessed a navy, had a whole British fleet been captured.