One of her officers is said to have sprung upon a gun, shaken his fists at the Americans, in a fearful state of excitement, and shouted "No! no! no!" adding a few opprobrious epithets, when a superior officer ordered him down. This exhibition, together with the ridiculous fact that a ship with her colors nailed was trying to surrender, brought a hearty laugh from the American crew, notwithstanding the shattered spars and bloody decks.
The _Enterprise_ immediately ceased firing, and took possession of the prize. The American vessel had suffered very little injury, though her hull was peppered with grapeshot, a ball had passed through her foremast and one through her mainmast, and her upper rigging was considerably cut. She had lost one man killed and thirteen wounded, three of them mortally. The _Boxer_ had been hulled repeatedly, three balls had passed through her foremast, some of her guns were dismounted, her top-gallant. forecastle was cut away, and her rigging badly injured. The number of her men that were killed { 204}has never been ascertained; fourteen were wounded. The commanders of the two vessels both fell, almost at the same moment: Blythe cut in two by an eighteen-pound ball, Burrows mortally wounded by a canister-shot. They were buried side by side in Portland, with the honors of war.
The poet Longfellow, who at that time was in his seventh year and lived in Portland, alludes to this battle in his poem entitled "My Lost Youth."=
```In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay
```And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'"=
On the day when the _Chesapeake_ was captured by the _Shannon_, three American war-vessels, under Commodore Decatur--the _United States_, the _Macedonian_, and the _Hornet_--were driven into the harbor of New London, Conn., by a superior force of British ships, and so rigorously was the blockade of the port kept up, that not one of the three got to sea again during the war. At the same time the land defences, manned by Connecticut militia, pre{ 205}vented the blockading squadron from entering the harbor to attack them. Decatur made many attempts to get out with his fleet, but was always frustrated by the vigilance of the blockaders, which he believed was assisted by traitors on shore. He declared that whenever he planned an escape, the enemy were warned of his intention by blue lights burned at the mouth of the harbor; and from this circumstance the opprobrious name of "Blue-Lights" was applied to the Federal party, which had opposed the war. It is not unlikely that something of this sort was done, either by traitors or by spies in the employ of the blockaders; but that the Federal party of Connecticut had anything to do with it is sufficiently refuted by the fact that the Connecticut militia, largely Federalists, not only protected Decatur's vessels when they might have permitted them to be captured, but rendered some distinguished services before the war was over, especially in the gallant defence of Stonington. Still the Federalists continued to oppose the war, though in a hopeless minority as to the whole country, and, like all parties out of power, sharply and unceasingly criticised the Administration. Their criticisms, too, were sometimes based on pretty strong facts, as, for instance, when they ridiculed the idea that it was a war for sailors' rights, by quoting an { 206}official circular to collectors of customs which forbade them to grant protections to Negro sailors. Even thus early were some of our politicians imbued with the notion that the color of a man's skin must necessarily make a vast difference with his rights under the government for which he paid taxes and bore arms.