On our proud flag Columbia indites,

"Free trade, and independent sailors' rights."*

This fragrant bowl is exquisitely wrought,
A nobler one my longing hand ne'er sought.
So deep to fathom, and so wide the brim,
An eight oar'd barge might in the nectar swim,
What quaint device is this-grav'd on its side?
The Constitution+ in triumphant pride!

1130

1135

The British Orders in Council prohibited Neutrals, and conse quently Americans, from trading with France, which was declared to be only a retaliatory decree; but the American Government considered it an infringement of their rights, on the principle that free ships make free goods. But what galled Jonathan in the sorest point was the search of his vessels on the high seas for British seamen, who by acts of naturalization and certificates of citizenship, were manufac. tured into Americans. These were novel pretensions, not to be admitted by Great Britain, as she recognizes no expatriation in her sons, and allows none to cancel the jurisdiction of their parent state. A similarity of language and manners made the exercise of this right liable to partial mistakes, and occasional abuse; a Yankey was now and then transplanted into an English man of war, who gave evidence of his consanguinity to the British, and vindicated the genuineness of his descent, either in taking a trick at the helm, furling a sail in a gale of wind, getting down yards and topmasts, or an anchor over the bow. It was, therefore, the uniform policy of the American Captains, to keep alive the remembrance of the outrage-manet injuria vexillo reposta and the American frigates went always into action with flags bearing the motto " Free trade and sailors' rights!"

The Constitution having taken in succession the Guerriere, the Java, and the Levant, and the Cyane, is the most popular ship in the United States Navy; and has exercised the skill and ingenuity of the trans-atlantic graver. From her strength and compactness, the Ame rican tars have bestowed on her the name of " Old Ironsides."

1140

The spangled-banner waving o'er the Cross-
A thousand left-one ship is no great loss.
How soon these vaunted trophies all were laid,
Won but to fall, and blooming but to fade.
Captain, be candid-can your lip deny-
(Though from your bosom steal the pensive sigh)
When Broke engag'd, and fought you gun to gun,
He made your yankeys from their quarters run?
Beneath the fell glance of the warrior's eye,
How many minutes did your colours fly?
The captain's cheek a blush of crimson dyed

1145

And turning on his chair his guest he eyed,
Stamp'd with his foot, and frowning to him cried:
The Chesapeake! had I thy forceful mace,

From the great deep her hull I would efface. 1150
The Chesapeake ! oh! ever lost to fame,
Barron* had scandal heap'd upon her name-
What time his foot her luckless plank first prest,
Her stars were darken'd-sunken was her crest.

* In the year 1807, as the Chesapeake, commanded by Commodore Barron, was proceeding from Hampton Roads on her passage to the Mediterranean, the Leopard, of 50 guns, was detached from a squa, dron to westward, with orders to search the American frigate for British deserters, and the unfortunate Commodore disgraced himself by suffering Captain Humphreys to take several men out of his ship, after a feeble resistance with one or two of his guns. Barron pleaded in extenuation that his main-deck was lumbered by the cables, not yet paid down into the cable-tier; but the sentence of a Court Martial suspended him from any command in the United States Navy for a

When the proud Shannon hove within her view,
A spell descended on her recreant crew.
A foreign wretch from Lusitania's strand,
An upstart fiend led on the buzzing band.
Sordid of soul, on lucre only bent,

A bribe they called for, ere to fight they went. 1160

certain term of years. Being without fortune, and having a family of three daughters to support, he offered his services to the Merchants of Russia, and obtained the command of a ship out of Archangel. For a long period he encountered the heavy gales and tremendous seas of the Baltic, sustained in the bleak watches of the midnight deck with the reflection that he still was the succouring father of his children. Returning to the United States to seek a restoration of his former dignities, his evil genius still pursued him; for, learning, on his arrival, that Commodore Decatur had declared him unworthy of reinstatement in the navy, he demanded satisfaction from that gallant officer in single combat. They met on the duelling ground at Bladensburg, where his antagonist falling, he became so obnoxious to the nation, that the voice of the sovereign people inhibited him any appointment.

* In answer to a Chronicler of "Naval Occurrences," in whose book, if, after wading through five hundred pages, we find one unbiassed assertion,

We bless our stars, and call it luxury!

It was not Adams the boatswain, but a Portuguese boatswain's mate, one Joseph Antonio, that stirred the Chesapeake's crew up to mutiny. Geoffry Crayon, who has slily concealed from the Reviewers in his preface to his Sketch Book, (or otherwise, Off with his head! So much for Buckingham) that he is the author of divers Philippics against Great Britain and her navy, has undeniably established the fact.

When seamen's wages are not duly paid,
The captain's voice is slenderly obey'd.

Hence to your guns! the lofty Lawrence cried,
But in his crew a coward crowd descried,
He fell, and o'er her deck is heard to cry
His ghost for vengeance on their treachery.
He fell betray'd, but left behind a name
Proud as e'er swell'd the trophied-roll of fame;
The dying words that quiver'd on his lip

1165

Our hearts still echo, “DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP!"*

This plea is better than the sorry ground

That the ship's bugle-man could not be found;

Captain Lawrence was mortally wounded by the fire of the first broadside from the Shannon, and carried down into the cockpit of the Chesapeake before Captain Broke boarded. His dying words were, "Don't give up the Ship!" The captain of the Shannon has been chiefly admired for his intrepidity in battle; but the judicious historian will record the humanity that adorned his conquest. Captain Lawrence was interred at Halifax with the highest military honours. Minute guns were fired until his body was brought on shore, when it was received by the sixty-fourth regiment, with arms reversed. The corse was then borne to the grave by the seamen of the Shannon; with six navy captains as pall-bearers, and the surviving officers of the Chesapeake as mourners; while all the officers of the staff, garrison, and navy, swelled the funeral procession.

F

As if a crew were like a pack forlorn,

Unless wound up to courage by a horn.*

1180,

They paus'd and while the youths o'er clonded stand,
The captain leant his head upon his hand,
His brimful eye his pensive bosom sought,
And all on Lawrence ran his tender thought;
The noble image of the naval chief
Forc'd from his soul the overflow of grief.
He saw him cover'd with a country's love,
To the great Capitol in triumph move,†
What time the shouts of millions shook the ground,
Bold as the bursting of their cannon-sound;
When vanquish'd standards, bright in figur'd gold,
Were to the gaze of multitudes unroll'd,
And in their robes the conscript fathers stood
To crown the youthful victor of the flood.

The Americans, in the Court of Inquiry on the surrender of the Chesapeake, ascribe it partly (risum teneatis amici) to the fright of W. Brown, the bugleman; who, when the two ships got foul, deserted his quarters, and, when dragged out of his skulking hole, was unable, from trepidation, to blow his horn!

Obstupuit, steteruntque comæ, et vox faucibus hæsit!

Captain Lawrence was conducted in triumphant procession to the Capitol at Washington, for the capture of the Peacock when he commanded the Hornet. The action took place off Demarara, and lasted only fifteen minutes, when the Peacock struck in a sinking condition, and he lost his trophy by her foundering.