ship!
Fight her till she strikes or sinks! Don't give up the ship!" his voice
growing weaker and weaker as his life ebbed away.

The battle was soon over, after that, for the British boarded, the
Chesapeake's foreign crew threw down their arms, and the triumphant
enemy hauled down the Chesapeake's flag. A few days later, the two ships
sailed into the harbor of Halifax, Lawrence's body, wrapped in his
ship's flag, lying in state on the quarter-deck. He was buried with
military honors, first at Halifax, and then at New York, where Hull,
Stewart and Bainbridge were among those who carried the pall. His cry,
"Don't give up the ship!" was to be the motto of another battle, far to
the west, where Great Britain experienced the greatest defeat of the
war.

Before describing it, however, let us speak briefly of four other
valiant men, whose deeds redounded to the honor of their country--Edward
Preble, Charles Stewart, Johnston Blakeley, and Thomas Macdonough. It
was said of Preble that he had the worst temper and the best heart in
the world. At sixteen years of age he ran away to sea, and two years
later, he actually saw a sea-serpent, a hundred and fifty feet in length
and as big around as a barrel, and got close enough to fire at it. He
saw service in the Revolution, and in 1803, was appointed to command the
expedition against the Barbary corsairs, of which we have already
spoken, and which resulted in bringing those pirates to their knees.
The trials of that expedition ruined his health, and he survived it but
a few years.

To Charles Stewart belongs the remarkable exploit of engaging and
capturing two British ships at the same time. Enlisting in 1798, he was
with Preble at Tripoli, and was given command of the Constitution, after
Bainbridge's successful cruise in her, and started out in search of
adventure on December 17, 1814. Two months later, off the Madeira
Islands he sighted two British ships-of-war and at once gave chase. He
overhauled them at nightfall, and, running between them, gave them
broadside after broadside, until both struck their colors. They were the
Cyane and the Levant. Stewart got back to New York the middle of May to
find out that peace had been declared over a month before his encounter
with the British ships.

He was received with enthusiasm, and "Old Ironsides" got the reputation
of being invincible. Her career had, indeed, been remarkable. She had
done splendid work before Tripoli, escaped twi