Assent they gave with heart and hand;
For never yet a braver band
To fight a ship, forsook the land,
Than Barclay had on board that day;—
The guns were loosed the game to win,
Their muzzles gaped a dismal grin,
And out they pulled their tompion pin,
The bloody game of war to play.
But Perry soon, with flowing sail,
Advanced, determined to prevail,
When from his bull-dogs flew the hail
Directed full at queen Charlotte.
His wadded guns were aim'd so true,
And such a weight of ball they threw,
As, Barclay said, he never knew
To come, before, so scalding hot!
But still, to animate his men
From gun to gun the warrior ran
And blazed away and blazed again—
Till Perry's ship was half a wreck:
They tore away both tack and sheet,—
Their victory might have been complete,
Had Perry not, to shun defeat
In lucky moment left his deck.
Repairing to another post,
From another ship he fought their host
And soon regain'd the fortune lost,
And down, his flag the briton tore:
With loss of arm and loss of blood
Indignant, on his decks he stood
To witness Erie's crimson flood
For miles around him, stain'd with gore!
Thus, for dominion of the lake
These captains did each other rake,
And many a widow did they make;—
Whose is the fault, or who to blame?—
The briton challenged with his sword,
The yankee took him at his word,
With spirit laid him close on board—
They're ours—he said—and closed the game.
ON THE CAPTURE
OF THE UNITED STATES FRIGATE ESSEX,
Of thirty-two guns, David Porter, esq. commander, in the neutral port of
Valparisso, on the coast of Chili, in South America, January, 1814,
by the british frigate Phoebe, capt. Hillyer, of forty-nine
guns, and the Cherub of thirty-two guns.
"All the devils were there, and hell was empty!"