USS Shannon

“ Her excellence in gunnery, however, began to be talked about ; and, much to Broke's annoyance, many ships arriving on the station fresh from England brought out orders to exchange a certain number of men with the Shannon, so that they too might receive the benefit of the new system. In May 1813 the Shannon was cruising off Boston, keeping watch on the American frigate Chesapeake, which had been newly recommissioned by Captain James Lawrence, lately in command of the Hornet when she sank the Peacock. ”

“ It is absurd to deny to the Americans courage of the very finest quality, but the amazing and unexpected severity of the Shannon's fire had destroyed for the moment their morale, and the British were in a mood of victory. The boatswain of the Shannon, an old Rodney man, lashed the two ships together, and in the act had his left arm literally hacked off by repeated strokes of a cutlass and was killed. ”

“ But several times the Chesapeake yawed and fell off her course as if she had lost her head, like a man dizzy from a blow that deadens the brain. And good reason why: three men in succession were shot away from her wheel. The expert riflemen placed in the Shannon's mizzentop were doing their work well. A puff of wind took the American all aback, she fell off and swung about. Her anchor caught in the Shannon's after port. And now not a gun could be brought to bear! Whole gun's crews left their places and plunged down the companionway to the deck below. ”

“ The Shannon mounts 24 guns upon her broadside, and one light boat-gun; 18-pounders upon her main-deck, and 32-pr. carronades on her quarter-deck and forecastle; and is manned with a complement of 300 men and boys, (a large proportion of the latter,) besides 30 seamen, boys, and passengers, who were taken out of recaptured vessels lately. I am thus minute, because a report has prevailed in some of the Boston papers, that we had 150 men additional lent us from la Hogue, which really never was the case. La Hogue is now gone to Halifax for provisions ”

“ In 1804, Mr. Shannon entered the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth; and in 1807, joined the Sybille frigate, commanded by Captain Upton, on the Irish station. He was made a lieutenant into the Lightning sloop. ”

“ The Shannon had cruised for eighteen months on the coast of America; the Chesapeake was newly out of harbor. The Shannon had a crew long accustomed to habits of strict obedience; the Chesapeake was manned by men who had just been engaged in mutiny. The Americans were wrong to accuse fortune on this occasion. ”

“ My powers of recuperation are great, and a few days saw me comparatively well in body, though by no means easy in mind. Up to this point my search for Captain Shannon had seemed to me a somewhat public-spirited and deserving enterprise. To bring such a scoundrel to justice would be doing a service to the country and to humanity; and in the wild scene of excitement which I knew would follow the news of his arrest I liked to picture myself as receiving the thanks of the community, and in fact being regarded very much as the hero of the hour. ”

“ On May 31st the Chesapeake dropped down to the lower bay; the men were stationed at the guns and were exercised at the battery. On June 1st, a little after midday, she stood to sea under all sails, even to studding sails. The Shannon stood off shore under easy sail until about eighteen miles from Boston Light, where [188] she awaited her foe, which had now also reduced her canvas.
There is no need to go into the manœuvres, which can be found in many books. Lawrence brought his ship so close that both vessels suffered severely. ”

“ There were no seamen of the good old school that could not if they had seen the English ship but admire her. With calm precision the Shannon—for it was well known who she was—braced back her maintopsails and hove to. In silence the two manœuvred. At every point the English vessel had the better of it. Which would fire first? There was one moment when the Chesapeake had the advantage. Owing to her clumsiness more than to her agility, she came about within pistol-shot distance under the enemy's stern. But her commander held his fire. ”

“ But for that determination and the discoveries which resulted from it I should in all probability have passed unnoticed the little brown cutter that I saw lying at anchor to the west of Southend as I passed by in the small steam launch which I hired for the purpose of carrying on my investigation. And had I passed that cutter unnoticed Captain Shannon would in all probability have reached America or Australia in safety, and it is more than likely that this narrative would never have been written. ”

“ But her colours were struck already, and the gallant and brave young man, delirious with suffering, cried continually for four days while life lasted, “Don’t give up the ship!” an expression which became consecrated to his countrymen. The Shannon carried her prize into Halifax, and there poor Lawrence died, and was buried, his pall being borne by the oldest captains in the British navy, who mourned for him with generous sympathy. War makes such men enemies, and their duty it is to kill each other! ”

“ Had it been my intention to abandon my quest I should have no choice but to acquaint New Scotland Yard with what had come to my knowledge. But, as a matter of fact, I was more than ever set on bringing the miscreant, Captain Shannon, to justice—and this not merely for the sake of reward, or because of the craving for adventure which had first urged me to the enterprise, but because of the loathing which I entertained for the monster whom I had with my own eyes seen at his hellish work. ”

“ The praise should be given to the individual captains and not to Congress, however; and none of the American ships had picked crews. During the war the Shannon had the only crew which could with any fairness be termed "picked," for her men had been together seven years, and all of her "boys" must have been well-grown young men, much older than the boys on her antagonist. ”

“ The owner is a sea captain. That is a volume in itself to me. Sailors are very fond of the picturesque, so I should expect Captain Shannon’s house to be delightfully situated, quaint and comfortable. I can’t imagine anyone from whom I’d rather buy property than from such a man as Captain Shannon must be,” concluded Miss Katherine.
“Why don’t he live in it himself, then, if it’s such a fine place?” inquired Joseph with an attempt at sarcasm which was quite beyond him.
“Can he live in a house on the land and sail on the sea at the same time?” demanded his disgusted sister. ”

“ It was now indeed a desperate fight for the few Americans. The Chesapeake’s mizzen-topmen were firing on the boarders with good aim. A long-nine was fired from the Shannon at this top and the charge cleared the top as a charge of bird-shot destroys a huddled covey of quails. The fore and maintopmen of the Shannon silenced the maintopmen of the Chesapeake—silenced them in death. Then fresh men came to the aid of Broke, who “was still leading his men with the same brilliant personal courage he had all along shown. ”

“ In the one noteworthy British victory, that of the Shannon, all British authors fail to make any allowance for the vital fact that the Shannon's crew had been drilled for seven years, whereas the Chesapeake had an absolutely new crew, and had been out of port just eight hours; yet such a difference in length of drill is more important than disparity in weight of metal.
As a whole, it must be said that both sides showed equal courage and resolution; that the Americans usually possessed the advantage in material force ”

“ Shannon, mute and perplexed, set his coffee on the window sill and leaned back, flicking the ashes from his cigar; Harrod passed his hands slowly over his hollow temples: "Her parents are dead; she is not yet twenty; she is not equipped to support herself in life; and—she is beautiful. What chance has she, Shannon?" ”

“ The one thing which I found it utterly impossible to reconcile with the theories I had previously formed about Captain Shannon was that the informer should have in his possession a portrait of his chief.
Was it likely, I asked myself, that so cunning a criminal would, by allowing his portrait to get into the possession of his agents, place himself at the mercy of any scoundrel who, for the sake of an offered reward, would be ready to betray his leader, or of some coward who, on falling into the hands of the police, might offer to turn Queen’s evidence? ”

“ Most naval men consider it a species of treason to regard the defeat as due to any thing but extraordinary ill fortune. And yet no disinterested reader can help acknowledging that the true reason of the defeat was the very simple one that the Shannon fought better than the Chesapeake. It has often been said that up to the moment when the ships came together the loss and damage suffered by each were about the same. ”

“ Of single ship actions the destruction of the British Peacock by the American Hornet, commanded by Captain Lawrence, on February 24, the capture of the American Argus by [Pg 142] the British Pelican not far from the Welsh coast on August 14, and the famous duel between the Chesapeake and the Shannon on June 1 were the most important.
The British frigate Shannon (38) was commanded by Captain Broke, who was famous not merely for the attention he paid to gun practice, but for the care he had bestowed on the laying of his ship's ordnance. ”

“ The Americans, bewildered and panic-stricken, were beaten below without much difficulty. Broke was indeed most seriously wounded on the head by a blow from the butt-end of a musket ; but within fifteen minutes from the time of the first gun being fired by the Shannon the American colours on board the Chesapeake were hauled down, and the English colours hoisted in their stead.
The apparently easy capture of the Chesapeake, a ship of the same nominal force but larger, with more men and a heavier armament than the Shannon, created a remarkable sensation both in America and in England. ”

“ Thence I should make straight for the coastguard station and inform the officer in charge that the notorious Captain Shannon was at that moment in hiding on the “Cuban Queen” disguised as a woman. The rest would be easy, for I had hit upon a plan by which, providing that I could count upon the (280) necessary assistance at the proper moment, the fugitive could be secured without difficulty or danger, and I saw no reason why the newspaper placards of the morning after Hughes’s return should not bear the startling announcement, “Arrest of Captain Shannon.” ”

“ The boys grew to manhood under his wise training. The same process was going on in other ships. If we could have limited the establishment of the navy to 80,000 or even 100,000 men, every ship might have been as well manned as the Shannon. ”

“ Many captains never put a shot in the guns till an enemy appeared; they employed the leisure time of the men in handling the sails and in decorating the ship. Captain Broke was not one of this kind. From the day on which he had joined her, the 14th of September, 1806, the Shannon began to feel the effect of her captain's proficiency as a gunner and zeal for the service. The laying of the ship's ordnance so that it may be correctly fired in a horizontal direction is justly deemed a most important operation, as upon it depends in a great measure the true aim and destructive effect of the shot ”

“ In the wild, savage fighting, where everything was so mixed that an American lieutenant joined the British boarders under the impression that they were his own men, Captain Broke was fearfully wounded, though he afterward recovered. The Chesapeake, with a loss of 47 killed and 99 wounded to 24 killed and 59 wounded of the enemy, became the prize of the Shannon. ”

“ It was evident that the Shannon was the better sailer. Several times the newly rove running-gear of the Chesapeake jammed in the blocks. Her crew were confused, and the men did not know their numbers at the guns. All exertions were made, however; but, after having been for some time within pistol-shot, broadsides were fired with tremendous execution. The first broadside that the Chesapeake received was a catastrophe in itself; the double-shotted guns of the enemy tore great breaks in her bulwarks, and officers who had occupied positions of great danger fell in every part of the ship. ”

“ But no man could restore to him the pride and self-respect that went when he realized that he was only one of several plucked and deluded victims of a female sharper. While the Frenchwoman ogled and languished behind the bars, Shannon wandered out into the world again, a deserter from the troop he was ashamed to face, an unfollowed, unsought fugitive among the mining camps in the Sierras. "Three stout soldiers stricken from the rolls—two of them gone to their last account," mused poor Plume, as at last he led his unhappy wife away to the sea, "and all the work of one woman!" ”

“ Broke, as the ships ground together, looked over the blood-splashed decks of the American and saw the men deserting the quarter-deck guns, under the terror of another broadside at so short a distance. "Follow me who can," he shouted, and with characteristic coolness "stepped"—in his own phrase—across the Chesapeake's bulwark. He was followed by some 32 seamen and 18 marines—50 British boarders leaping upon a ship with a crew of 400 men, a force which, even after the dreadful broadsides of the Shannon, still numbered 270 unwounded men in its ranks. ”