Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/567

 12 s. x. JUNE IT, 1922.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 465 Ashmolean Museum ; was taken in Dublin, but convicted at Oxford, and sent to Woolwich to the hulks. This I prove thus : in 1776 Mr. Lloyd of Xewbury and the late Mr. J. S. Harford of Blaize Castle, went to London, where, among other sights, they visited Woolwich ; and Mr. Lloyd (saw) his Warminster tutor as one of the convicts wheeling a wheelbarrow and pointed him out to Mr. Harford. In this letter, it is to be observed, "Warminster" is obviously a mistake for in strictness be 1777 instsad of 1776 ; and the almost illegible *' Fariin de la Jan" may possibly be the " Fantin la Tour " referred to by the Rev. W. Turner and Mr. Bright in their articles on the Academy. SIDNEY L. PHIPSON. (To be concluded.) THE CHESAPEAKE AND SHANNON. As memory recalled very imperfectly the details of the short but brilliant engagement between the above-named American and British frigates, to which reference was recently made (12 S. ix. 368), the following particulars of it will be read with interest. The Chesapeake, commanded by Capt. Lawrence (50 guns, 376 men), struck to the 'Shannon (38 guns, 330 men), commanded by Captain Philip B. V. Broke, on June 1, 1813, after a severe conflict of eleven min- utes, i.e., eleven minutes only having elapsed between the firing of the first gun and the boarding; and in four minutes the Chesa- peake was the prize of the Shannon. Capt. Lawrence died of his wounds. Capt. Broke, whose head was severely injured by a sabre cut on board the Chesa- peake (" after the men had submitted "), recovered, and died a Rear- Admiral in 1841. For this victory a baronetcy was bestowed upon him, and he was created a K.C.B. Whilst the engagement lasted it was very fierce. Sixty were wounded, three died on board, and forty were discharged to the Halifax Hospital, where John Samwell, midshipman (who received a musket ball through the thigh), and Wm. Stevens, boatswain (whose left arm was amputated below the elbow on account of having had his forearm nearly severed), died ; but there is no record of how many succumbed there to their wounds. The following, which appeared first in The United Service Gazette, June 1 (1839), gives the American version of the fight, and was reprinted in The Bermuda Royal Gazette, from which it is now copied. But, before proceeding further, it were advisable to state that, in the first-named Gazette., the writer was reviewing ' The History of the United States,' by John Fennimore Cooper, but specially confined his quotations therefrom to the action between the Chesa- peake and Shannon. P.R.O., C.O. 41/1, Aug. 6, 1839. Mr. Cooper says, that Capt. Lawrence entered into this engagement against his own inclination on account of the peculiar state of the ship's company, which in the one page he states to have been disaffected, and yet in the following we find these words " The history of Naval Warfare does not contain an instance of a ship being more gallantly conducted than the Chesapeake." Xo mention is made of the pleasure vessels which followed her out of Boston to see the British " whipped." Capt. Lawrence chose to lay his enemy fairly alongside, yard-arm and yard-arm, and he luffed and ranged up a-beam on the Shannon's starboard side. When the Chesapeake's foremast was in a line with the Shannon's mizen-mast, the latter ship discharged her cabin guns and the others in succession, from aft forward. The Chesapeake did not fire until all her guns bore, when she delivered as destructive a broadside as probably ever came out of a ship of her force. For six or eight minutes the cannonading was fierce, and the best of the action is said to have been with the American frigate, so far as the general effect of the fire was concerned ; though it was much in favour of the enemy in. its particular and acci- dental consequences. At the few first discharges of the Shannon, Capt. Lawrence had received a wound in the leg. Mr. Broom, the marine officer, Mr. Ballard, the acting fourth lieutenant, and the boatswain were mortally wounded. Mr. White, the master, was killed, and Mr. Ludlow, the first lieutenant, twice wounded by grape and musketry. As soon as the ships were foul, Capt. Broke passed forward in the Shannon, and, to use his own language, " seeing that the enemy was flinching from his guns," he gave the order to board. When the enemy entered the ship from the fore- channels, it was with great caution, and so slowly, that twenty resolute men would have repulsed him. The boarders had not yet appeared from below, and meeting with no resistance he began to move forward (having entered the Chesapeake from aft). This critical moment lost the ship ! for the English, encouraged by the state of the Chesapeake's upper deck, now rushed forward in numbers, and soon had the entire command above board. The remaining officers appeared on deck, and endeavored to make a rally, but it was altogether too late. The enemy fired down the hatches, and killed and wounded a great many men in this way, but it does not appear that their fire was returned. How does James meet this assertion ? He shall speak for himself. An unexpected fire of musketry opened by the
 * ' Warrington " ; the Woolwich date should