It was “a fearful wound,” but Burrows, despite his mortal agony, refused to be carried below, “crying out that the colors must never be struck.” However, Lieutenant McCall was obliged to take command, and this was one of the few instances in history where a subordinate who succeeded to the command of a ship because his superior was shot out of it has done as well as his chief could have done. The fire on the Enterprise continued as vigorous and effective as before. Her sailing proved, bad as it was, superior to that of the enemy, and on forging ahead McCall eased her sheets, hauled down his foresail, ran down across her bows, raked her with his port battery, and then luffing up and backing his head-yards, he raked her again and again with the fresh battery on the starboard side.
Diagram of the ENTERPRISE-BOXER BATTLE.
The wind was from the southwest.
It is a story quickly told, but the enemy stood the fire, returning it as best they might with such guns as would bear, until 3.45 P.M., when an officer appeared on the top-gallant forecastle and shouted that they had surrendered, but they could not haul down the colors because all of them were nailed fast to the spars.
The next moment another officer, though of inferior grade, jumped up in sight and, shaking his fists toward the Enterprise, shouted “no, no, no!” and added “some pretty strong words of opprobrium.” However, his superior ordered him down, while the Americans laughed heartily at the scene the youngster had made.
Then men went aloft and with considerable labor ripped the ensigns from the spars and brought them to the deck. It was now learned that the beaten vessel was the British brig Boxer, Captain Samuel Blythe, and that Blythe had ordered the flags nailed aloft, saying that they should not be lowered while he lived; nor were they. At about the time that Burrows was mortally hurt, Blythe was struck fair in the chest by an eighteen-pound shot that almost cut him in two and killed him instantly.
Burrows happily lived until after the formal surrender. The sword of the British commander was brought on board the Enterprise and offered to him. Grasping it with both hands, he said:
“I am satisfied. I die content.” A few minutes later he was dead.
The Boxer having been carried into Portsmouth, she was there inspected by Commodore Hull, and letters written by him to the Secretary of the Navy and to Commodore Bainbridge give, with the official report of Lieutenant McCall, all the accurate information we have about the force of the Boxer and the damage she sustained. As to her guns, there is no dispute. She carried twelve short eighteens and two long sixes, to the fourteen long eighteens and two long nines on the Enterprise. The Americans, with short-weight shot, fired one hundred and twenty-five pounds of metal to the British one hundred and fourteen. Exactly what her crew numbered is not known. Commodore Hull wrote to Commodore Bainbridge as follows on this subject: