helpless, the Englishman “most prudently struck his flag.” After survivors were removed the ship was blown up ( bottom right ). These pictures were drawn and etched by Nicholas Pocock, an English shipmaster turned marine painter, from sketches on the spot by a Lieutenant Muchanan, and published in London in 1814. One cannot imagine enemy successes being so impartially celebrated in the bitter atmosphere of war in modern times.

Defeats that won glory

After the battle shown on the preceding two pages, the captured Chesapeake was led into the harbor of Halifax by her captors ( right ), the white ensign symbolically flying over the flag of the Unoted States. This was one of several notable American defeats, which nevertheless had certain aspects in which the new nation would take pride.

The Chesapeake had been in port less than two months since her last cruise and most of her personnel, officers and men, were new to the ship. Her orders were to cruise on the British line of communications to Canada, a most important assignment because of impending land operations. What was needed most was a period of intensive training to develop the competence necessary to sail the ship and man the guns and to carry out all orders with precision in the stress of battle. All chance of such a period of preparation was lost when the Shannon was discovered to be cruising within sight. In an age when single-ship actions between vessels of relatively equal power were regarded as the classic oppotunity for the display of technical knowledge and gallantry in fighting, there couls be little choice.

Another remarkable defeat was that of the Essex by the frigate Phoebe and the sloop of war Cherub (below) off Valparaiso on March 28, 1814. When word was received of Porter’s successes-he captured twelve British whalers, drove the balance to seek shelter in neutral ports, and cleared tha area for American whalers, previously having taken a prize carrying £11,000—a squadron was sent to catch him. For six weeks he was blockaded and eventually, when his vessel had been severely damaged in a squall, was forced to fight both ships. The battle lasted nearly two and one-half hours, resulting in the captire of the Essex . The great disparity of forces and the length of the engagement caused tremendous American losses which would undoubtedly have been less had POrter surrounded earlier. Out of 255 men, only 75 were effective when the colors were struck. Even in her defeat, the Essex was the most successful of all the frigates.

Decisive battles on the lakes

The most colorlul and decisive sea battles of the war were fought far from salt water; in each of the two an American fleet was called suddenly into being, and in each a youthful American commander defeated a whole British squadron.

A series of American disasters had greeted all attempts to invade Canada, and 1813 found the British in control of Lake Erie. But in Erie, Pennsylvania, an American fleet was created, literally from green timbers, and in its flagship. the brig Lawrence , flying a flag reading “Don’t Give Up The Ship,” 28-year-old Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry set out, with eight other ships, to meet the British. When concentrated British fire put the Lawrence out of action, Perry seized his flag and transferred it to the Niagara . In her he sailed through the enemy line, raking at close range until, after a fifteen-minute cannonade, the British surrendered and Perry could send his famous message to General William Henry Harrison: “We have met the enemy and they are ours.”

The victory of Thomas Macdonough. thirty, over a superior British Meet on Lake Champlain a year later, accompanied by an American victory on the land, was probably the most important naval action of the war. It thwarted an invasion from the north.