“For want of matches and the other necessary things that were not to be found, they had to let their guns keep silence, though they were filled with fury that they had no chance at all to defend themselves and show their insolent foe how American blue-jackets can fight. They heated pokers red-hot in the galley fire, but they cooled too much before they could get them to the guns.
“So for eighteen minutes the Leopard kept on firing at a helpless, unresisting foe. Then the Chesapeake’s flag was hauled down, two British lieutenants and some midshipmen came in a boat from the Leopard, boarded the Chesapeake, and again demanded the deserters.
“Of course, there was no choice but to give them up. Four sailors were seized and carried aboard the Leopard in triumph. One of them they hung, one died before he could escape, but five years later the other two got back to the Chesapeake.”
“Max, you are forgetting that one shot was fired from the Chesapeake?” said Lulu.
“Yes, you tell about it.”
“There was a Lieutenant Allen among the officers of the Chesapeake, who cried out in his anger, ‘I’ll have one shot at those rascals, anyhow,’ ran to the galley fire, picked up a live coal in his fingers, and, never caring for the pain, ran with it to one of the guns and fired it off just as the flag came fluttering down.”
“He was a brave fellow,” commented Sandy. “Well, I s’pose the British didn’t fire any more after they got what they wanted. But hadn’t their shot made some big holes in the Chesapeake?”
“I presume so,” replied Lulu. “Anyhow, she turned and went back.
“Everybody in the whole country was furious on hearing the news—which I don’t blame them for, I’m sure; but it was a great shame that the government punished Commodore Barron, by suspending him from the service, without pay, for five years. Papa says it was very unjust, for it wasn’t his fault that things were not in order on the vessel, but the fault of the fitting-out officers. And I feel perfectly certain that the commodore and everybody else on the Chesapeake would have fought bravely if they’d had half a chance, and whipped the insolent British well. Oh, I do wish they had had a chance!”
“Well, never mind,” said Max. “We whipped them well in the war that followed a few years later.”