This ended the battle. The "Confiance" herself, attempting to wind, was caught when half-way round, and after enduring a few moments of the "Saratoga's" fresh fire, struck her colors and surrendered. The "Linnet" held out a little longer, but it was a useless struggle, and she too hauled down her flag.
It was a complete victory. The enemy were more than defeated,--they were annihilated, their squadron wiped out of existence. Lake Champlain, which till this point in the war had been almost a British lake, was now delivered up without a possibility of recovery. Sir George Prevost, seeing the issue of the battle in the bay, made only a feeble demonstration against Plattsburg, and soon he was in full retreat to Canada, and New York was saved from the threatened invasion.
During the latter part of the war, as might have been foreseen, there was little opportunity for American frigates to show that they could keep up the fame they had so gloriously won. The British were determined that none of them that ventured out to sea should escape; and by stationing a squadron, which their great resources enabled them to do, before each port where a frigate lay, they succeeded in keeping it cooped up and inactive. No longer were offers made by British captains, like that of the chivalrous Broke before Boston, to send away part of their vessels, leaving one to fight a duel with the frigate that was in the harbor. A steady watch was kept up before each port by the whole blockading squadron. The "Constellation," which had won such high renown under Truxtun in the French war, sailed from Washington down the Chesapeake Bay; but falling in with the heavy squadron of the enemy near Hampton Roads, composed of ships-of-the-line and frigates, she took refuge at Norfolk, and here or in the river below she remained blockaded till the end of the war. The "President" was lying at New York, and off the port were the "Majestic" (razee) and three frigates,--the "Endymion," "Pomone," and "Tenedos." The "United States" and "Macedonian," after getting out from New York though Hell Gate, encountered the British squadron of a line-of-battle ship and two frigates at the eastern entrance of the Sound, and put in to New London, where they lay in the mud for eighteen months unable to get out. The "Constitution," under Captain Stewart at Boston, found herself checked in the same way by a squadron of heavy frigates.
