The Chesapeake was taken in just fifteen minutes, one minute more than the Hornet had taken to capture the Peacock.

The British hauled down the American flag, and then hoisted it again with a white flag to show their victory. But the sailor who did the work, by mistake got the white flag under the Stars and Stripes.

When the gunners in the Shannon saw the Yankee flag flying they fired again, and this time killed and wounded a number of their own men, one of them being an officer.

["Don't Give up the Ship!"]

The gallant Lawrence never knew that his ship was lost. He lived until the Shannon reached Halifax with her prize, but he became delirious, and kept repeating over and over again his last order—"Don't give up the ship!"

With these words he died. With these words his memory has become immortal. "Don't give up the ship!" is the motto of the American navy, and will not be forgotten while our great Republic survives. So Captain Lawrence gained greater renown in defeat than most men have won in victory.

The capture of the Chesapeake was a piece of wonderful good fortune for the British, to judge by the way they boasted of it. As Captain Pearson had been made a knight for losing the Serapis, so Captain Broke was made a baronet for taking the Chesapeake. A "baronet," you must know, is a higher title than a "knight," though they both use the handle of "Sir" to their names.

The work of the Shannon proved—so the British historians said—that, "if the odds were anything like equal, a British frigate could always whip an American, and in a hand-to-hand conflict such would invariably be the case."

Such things are easy to say, when one does not care about telling the truth. Suppose we give now what a French historian, who believed in telling the truth, said of this fight,—