Naval warfare may have lost some spectacular drama, so dear to 17th century historians and patriots, when warship commanders quit writing courtly challenges to single ship actions, but at least it reduced naval paper work a little, until more modern times brought the gathering storm of forms and reports that bedevil present-day captains and their subordinate officers.
So, except for this possible loss of drama, this depriving of historians of their choice bits of color, this killing off of the old flamboyant practice by the drastic changes in naval warfare patterns is all to the good. Bomber pilots and submarine commanders have no time, opportunity, nor even inclination to write challenging letters, nor answers, even if an opponent was silly enough to turn to typewriter rather than to ack-ack batteries or depth charge racks.
But there was a day when the business of naval warfare often began with an exchange of almost ponderous amenities, of silken politeness designed to place deadly work on a “higher social plane.”
Take that letter P. B. V. Broke, captain of the British frigate Shannon, 38, wrote to Captain James Lawrence, U. S. Navy, commanding the U.S.S. Chesapeake, 38, back in June, 1813, as an example. Lawrence had sailed from Boston before the letter reached him. In fact, his life and ship were lost before Broke’s penmanship came to American naval eyes, but the letter is still worth citing for it is so typical of the old lime courtly challenges to single ship action, long since gone from the letter books of the United States Navy.
Broke, whose ship actually mounted 52 guns, while the Chesapeake had 50, wrote thus:
“Sir,
“As the Chesapeake appears now ready for sea, I request you will do me the favour to meet the Shannon with her, ship to ship, to try the fortune of our respective flags. To an officer of your character, it requires some apology for proceeding to further particulars. Be assured, sir, that it is not from any doubt I can entertain for your wishing to close with my proposals, but merely to provide an answer to any objections which might be made, and very reasonably, upon the chance of our receiving unfair support.
“After the diligent attention which we had paid to Comm. Rodgers; the pains I took to detach all force, but the Shannon and Tenedos, 38, to such a distance that they could not possibly join in any action fought in sight of the Capes; and the various verbal messages which had been sent into Boston to that effect; we were much disappointed to find the commodore had eluded us, by sailing on the first chance, after the prevaling Easterly winds had obliged us to keep an offing from the coast. He perhaps wished for some stronger assurance of a fair meeting. I am therefore induced to address you more particularly, and to assure you, that what I write I pledge my honour to perform to the utmost of my power.
“The Shannon mounts twenty-four guns upon her broadside, and one light boat gun; eighteen pounders on her main deck, and thirty-two pound carronades on her quarter deck and forecastle; and is manned with a complement of three hundred men and boys fa large proportion of the latter), besides thirty seamen, boys and passengers, who were taken out of re-captured vessels lately. I am thus minute, because a report has prevailed in some of the Boston papers that we had one hundred and fifty men, lent us from La Hogue, 74, which really was never the case.
“La Hogue is now gone to Halifax for provisions and 1 will send all other ships beyond the power of interfering with us, and will meet you wherever it is most agreeable to you; from six to ten leagues East of Cape Cod lighthouse, from eight to ten leagues East of Cape Ann Light on Cashe’s Ledge in lat. 43 N. at any bearing and distance, you please to fix off the South breakers of Nantucket, or the shoals off St. George’s Bank.
“If you will favour me with any plan of signals or telegraph, I will warn you (if sailing under this promise), should any of my friends be too nigh or anywhere in sight, until I can detach them out of the way, or I would sail with you under a flag of truce to any place you think safest from our cruisers, hauling it down when fair to begin hostilities.
“You must, sir, be aware than my proposals are highly advantageous to you, as you cannot proceed to sea singly in the Chesapeake without imminent risk of being crushed by the superior force of the numerous British squadrons which are now abroad, where all your efforts, in case of a rencontre, would, however gallant, be perfectly hopeless.
“I entreat you, sir, not to imagine that I am urged by mere personal vanity to the wish of meeting the Chesapeake; or that I depend only upon your personal ambition for your acceding to this invitation: we have both nobler motives.
“You will feel it as a compliment if I say, that the result of our meeting may be the most grateful service I can render to my country; and I doubt not that you, equally confident of success, will feel convinced that it is only by repeated triumphs in even combats that your little navy can now hope to console your country for the loss of that trade it can no longer protect. Favour me with a speedy reply. We are short of provisions and water, and cannot stay long here.
“I have the honour to be, sir,
your obedient servant
P. B. V. BROKE
Capt. of H.B.M. ship Shannon
“N.B. For the general service of watching your coast, it is requisite for me to keep another ship in company to support me with her guns and boats when employed near the land, particularly to aid each other if either ship in chase should get on shore. You must be aware that I cannot consistently with my duty, waive so great an advantage for this general service by detaching my consort, without any assurance on your part, of meeting me directly; and that you will neither seek nor admit aid from any other of your armed vessels, if I detach mine expressly for the sake of meeting you.
“Should any special order restrain you from thus answering a formal challenge, you may yet oblige me by keeping my proposal a secret, and appointing any place you like to meet me (within 300 miles of Boston) in a given number of days after you sail; as, unless you agree to an interview, I may be busied on other service, and perhaps be at a distance from Boston when you go to sea. Choose your terms—but let us meet.”
There are two or three barbs in that letter, such as the comment about the little navy and loss of trade, calculated to stir Captain Lawrence’s temper; also that suggestion that a clandestine arrangement might be to the American skipper’s liking but, under the circumstances it didn’t matter what the Briton wrote or whether he wrote at all, for Lawrence couldn’t resist a light if any single British frigate of reasonable force showed her topsails off Boston harbor.
So, when the Shannon appeared he weighed anchor despite the fact that his crew contained a large proportion of green hands and the ship’s company below decks was restless, almost mutinous, over some confusion regarding shore leave they had not received. The officers did not know their men, could not identify most of them and there had been no drills. The crew was raw, about as raw as any American captain ever took into action, and a lot of them deserted their posts, so many in fact, that the subsequent court of inquiry headed by Commodore William Bainbridge, recommended that the pay of the entire crew be held up pending a further inquiry regarding conduct of at least four junior officers and many ratings. But all this is quite another story.
Now some historians say Lawrence left his anchorage as the result, of receiving Broke’s challenge to come out and fight. But Broke’s letter actually reached Salem, not Boston, after the Chesapeake was taken off the latter port, ff a duplicate had been received by Lawrence before it sailed, it seems reasonable Lieutenant George Budd, senior surviving officer of the American frigate, would have mentioned it in his subsequent report of the action to the Secretary of the Navy and he did not.
At any rate, on the afternoon of June 1, the American frigate left her anchorage just below Fort Independence and stood out to sea, hoisting her colors and firing a gun to draw the attention of the British ship jogging back and forth off the Graves. Spectators by the thousands gathered ashore on every point of vantage, but the frigates went to the eastward and were soon lost to sight from the town.
Action began at pistol shot distance just before six o’clock. On the Chesapeake, Captain Lawrence and Lieutenant Augustus C. Ludlow, the first lieutenant, were mortally wounded; Edward J. Ballard, the fourth lieutenant, Sailing Master William A. While and Lieutenant James Broom of the Marines were killed.
The ships were at its yardarm-to-yardarm when a grenade thrown from one of the Shannon's tops exploded an arms chest and some loose ammunition on the gun deck of the Chesapeake. The blast killed several men hut its chief damage was the panic it generated among many of the crew who deserted their guns and sought to hide below.
At this juncture British boarders swarmed on the Chesapeake, soon beat down feeble resistance organized by Lieutenant Budd, and the ship was theirs. Captain Lawrence and Lieutenant Ludlow who died on the voyage to Halifax were accorded honors by the British, and their bodies were later brought back under a flag of truce to the United States for burial in New York.
Men close to Lawrence during the brief action and while his life ebbed say that he issued his memorable orders from the cockpit while prostrate. Those words “keep the guns going”—“fight her till she strikes or sinks”—are only a little less known than the immortal phrase, his emphatic message to the gundeck, “Don’t give up the ship.” It was this message, uttered when he learned that the enemy had secured the spar deck, that Commodore Perry hoisted over his flagship in the Battle of Lake Erie.
When Lawrence was told that his ship was lost he said weakly, “then the officers of the deck haven’t toed the mark—the Shannon was whipped when I left.