ged in mutiny. The Americans were wrong to
accuse fortune on this occasion. Fortune was not fickle, she was merely
logical."

That is about the same as to say that the _Chesapeake_ was given away to
the enemy. After that there were no more ships sent out of port unfit to
fight, merely to please the people. It was a lesson the people needed.

The body of the brave Lawrence was laid on the quarter-deck of the
_Chesapeake_ wrapped in an American flag. It was then placed in a coffin
and taken ashore, where it was met by a regiment of British troops and a
band that played the "Death March in Saul." The sword of the dead hero
lay on his coffin. In the end his body was buried in the cemetery of
Trinity Church, New York. A monument stands to-day over his grave, and
on it are the words:

"Neither the fury of battle, the anguish of a mortal wound, nor the
horrors of approaching death could subdue his gallant spirit. His dying
words were

'Don't give up the ship!'"

CHAPTER XVI

COMMODORE PERRY WHIPS THE BRITISH ON LAKE ERIE

"WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND THEY ARE OURS"

IN the year 1813, when war was going on between England and the United
States, the whole northern part of this country was a vast forest. An
ocean of trees stretched away from the seaside in Maine for a thousand
miles to the west, and ended in the broad prairies of the Mississippi
region.

The chief inhabitants of this grand forest were the moose and the deer,
the wolf and the panther, the wild turkey and the partridge, the red
Indian and the white hunter and trapper. It was a very different country
from what we see to-day, for now its trees are replaced by busy towns
and fertile fields.

But in one way there has been no change. North of the forest lands
spread the Great Lakes, the splendid inland seas of our northern
border; and these were then what they are now, vast plains of water
where all the ships of all the nations might sail.

Along the shores of these mighty lakes fighting was going on; at Detroit
on the west; at Niagara on the east. Soon war-vessels began to be built
and set afloat on the waters of the lakes. And these vessels after a
time came together in fierce conflict. I have now to tell the story of a
famous battle between these lake men-of-war. There was then in our navy
a young man named Oliver Hazard Perry. He was full of the spirit of
fight, but, while others were winning victories on the high seas, he was
given no