It was of no use now,--this last injunction,--for there was none to heed it. The quarter-deck had been stripped of all its officers except the midshipmen, who after all were only boys, and three of whom have fallen. Lawrence, before he is carried off, orders the boarders to be summoned, but the frightened bugler cannot sound the call. The captain's aides were sent below to pass the word, but the gun's crews on the main-deck, in the confusion, fail to understand the order. On the upper deck the men, uncertain, without a leader, are flinching from their guns. Broke, from his forecastle, sees that the Americans are weakening, and calls away the men to board. His boatswain, a veteran of Rodney's fleet, lashes the ships together, and in an instant twenty of the crew, led by their captain, have leaped the rail and gained the "Chesapeake's" quarter-deck. The deck is piled with bodies, but there is no one here to make resistance. On the forecastle are gathered a fragment of the frightened crew, and against these the enemy now advances. They are in no condition to resist: a few struggle to reach the hatchway; others climb over the bow; the rest throw down their arms and call for quarter.
For a moment there is now a pause, but presently some of the men below make a rush for the deck, and the fight begins anew. It is a scene of wild confusion. The enemy is now crowding on board,--officers, marines, blue-jackets; there seems no end to their numbers. The "Chesapeake's" topmen, who as yet have taken no part in the struggle, now pick the boarders off with small arms, but they are soon driven from their stations. The two remaining lieutenants, Budd and Cox, who have meantime come up from the deck below, are both wounded. The gallant Ludlow, striving, mortally wounded as he is, to drag himself up the ladder, is cut down as he reaches the hatchway. The chaplain, Livermore, seizes a pistol and fires without effect at Broke, who in return makes one furious cut with his sword, nearly dividing his assailant's arm. The "Shannon's" first lieutenant hauls down the flag and bends an English ensign; but in the hurry he hoists it with the old colors still above, and the guns' crews, whom he has left on board his ship, suppose from this that the boarders have been defeated. So they open again, and kill their own lieutenant and several of his men. Captain Broke, urging his boarders on, is half stunned by a blow from the musket of a marine, who clubs with his gun since he cannot fire; and a sailor, following the marine, cuts down the captain, only to be himself cut down by one of the enemy. A few minutes of desperate hand-to-hand conflict with pike and pistol and cutlass, and the Americans on deck are overpowered and yield. The crew below, not daring to come up, are still making a show of resistance; but a few shots fired down the hatchway put an end to the struggle, and the "Chesapeake" is in the hands of the enemy.