As another British war-vessel was not far away, the _Hornet_ had to be put in fighting trim again with all speed, which was accomplished within four hours after the action. As she was crowded with prisoners and was short of water, she turned her prow toward home, arriving at Martha's Vineyard on the the 19th of March, and proceeding through Long Island Sound to New York. Congress voted Lawrence a gold medal, and to each of his commissioned officers a silver one; and he was soon promoted to the rank of captain, and given command of the frigate _Chesapeake_, then lying in Boston harbor. The very next naval battle was the one in which Lawrence lost his life, lost his ship, and lost a great part of his reputation. { 197}Captain Philip Bowes Vere Broke, commanding the British frigate _Shannon_, of thirty-eight guns, had been cruising along the New England coast for some time, looking for prizes, and especially for an opportunity to retrieve the honor of his flag in an encounter with some American war-ship of the size of his own. Lawrence was preparing for a cruise against the English fleet engaged in the Greenland whale-fishery; but when the Shannon appeared in the offing, June 1st, he hastily got his crew together and went out from Boston to fight her.
Broke had sent in to him a letter containing a formal challenge to try the powers of the two ships; but it did not arrive till the _Chesapeake_ had sailed, and Lawrence never received it. One sentence of this letter is very significant, in that it contains the whole germ of the war. "I doubt not that you, equally confident of success, will feel convinced that it is only by repeated triumphs in even combats that your little navy can now hope to console your country for the loss of that trade it can no longer protect." That was it exactly. American trade, the grudge of British merchants, and the constant object of British hostilities, was to be permitted only so far as American guns were able to protect it; and since the American navy, as Captain Broke said, was little, while England's was large, it { 198}was confidently believed by his countrymen that this protection would not ultimately amount to much.
At six o'clock in the evening the vessels came within cannon-shot of each other, and the _Shannon_ opened fire at once. But the Chesapeake remained silent till her whole broadside could be brought to bear; then she opened her ports, and for eight minutes there was a terrific and continuous roar. Now, as before, the Americans were the better gunners, and in this broadside firing the advantage was with the _Chesapeake_; but accident favored her antagonist and gave him an opportunity to use the advantages he possessed in other respects. Two or three shots that struck the rigging of the Chesapeake rendered her for a short time not perfectly manageable, and her mizzen-rigging fouled in the _Shannons_ fore-chains. This exposed her to a raking fire, and her upper deck was swept at once by two of the enemy's guns.