accomplished. This victory opened the port of Black Rock, where
several American vessels were collected, which Perry undertook to get
into Lake Erie against the strong current of the river, a feat which
was accomplished with extraordinary fatigue; so that he returned to
his station at Erie, with a respectable addition of five vessels to
his own newly launched little fleet in that harbor. The American force
was composed of the brigs Lawrence and Niagara, of twenty guns each,
and seven smaller vessels, numbering in all fifty-four guns. Captain
Barclay, commander of the British forces on the lake, had the Detroit,
of nineteen guns, the Queen Charlotte, Lady Provost, and three other
vessels, numbering altogether sixty-three guns. The range of the
enemy's guns gave them the advantage at a distance, when the
corresponding American fire was ineffectual. The Americans, too, were
under a disadvantage in the enfeebled state of the crews, by the
general illness which prevailed among them. The British force had
undoubtedly the superiority in trained men, as compared with Perry's
extemporized miscellaneous command, and untried junior officers. The
latter proved, however, to be of the right material.

On the morning of the engagement the American fleet was among the
islands off Malden at Put in Bay, when the British fleet bore up.
There was some difficulty at first in clearing the islands, and the
nature of the wind seemed likely to throw Perry upon the defensive,
when a southeast breeze springing up, enabled him to bear down upon
the enemy. This was at ten o'clock of a fine autumnal morning. Perry
arranged his vessels in line, taking the lead in his flag-ship, the
Lawrence, on which he now raised the signal for action, a blue flag,
inscribed in large white letters, with the words of the dying
Lawrence, "Don't give up the ship!" He accompanied this movement with
an appeal to his men. "My brave lads, this flag contains the last
words of Captain Lawrence. Shall I hoist it?" "Ay, ay, sir!" was the
willing response. In this way he cheered the men in the awful pause,
"a dead silence of an hour and a half," preceding the action, for in
the light breeze the vessels were long in overcoming the intermediate
distance of several miles.

Perry, who knew the perils of the day, prepared his papers as if for
death. He leaded the public documents in readiness to be cast
overboard, and--a touching trait of these moments--gave a hurried
perusal to