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Updated: June 11, 2025
Commodore Barron replied that he knew of no deserters on his ship, and that he could permit no search to be made, even if there were. After some further altercation the Englishman fired a broadside, killing and wounding a number of the Chesapeake's crew.
After application for their surrender had been made in vain to the magistrates of the town of Norfolk, where the Chesapeake's rendezvous was, and to the officer commanding the rendezvous, Vice-admiral Berkeley sent his flagship, the Leopard, carrying fifty guns, with an order to the British captains on the North American station to search the Chesapeake for deserters from six ships named, including the Halifax, in case she should be encountered on the high seas.
The battle was soon over, after that, for the British boarded, the Chesapeake's foreign crew threw down their arms, and the triumphant enemy hauled down the Chesapeake's flag. A few days later, the two ships sailed into the harbor of Halifax, Lawrence's body, wrapped in his ship's flag, lying in state on the quarter-deck.
Four minutes before six the 'Chesapeake's' helm, probably from the death of the men stationed at it, being for the moment unattended to, the ship lay with her stem and quarter exposed to her opponent's broadside, which did terrible execution.
The second division of the Marines now rushed forward, and while one party kept down the Americans who were ascending the main hatchway, another party answered a destructive fire which still continued from the main and mizzen tops. The 'Chesapeake's' main top was presently stormed by midshipman William Smith.
Well, we came along the same way, past old William of Wykeham's Wickham, the queer mill built of the Chesapeake's timbers, and Bishops' Waltham, where the ruins of the Episcopal palace struck me as being grander than I had realized.
At six o'clock, the 'Chesapeake' and 'Shannon' being in close contact, the 'Chesapeake, endeavouring to make a little ahead, was stopped by becoming entangled with the anchor of the 'Shannon. Captain Broke now ran forward, and, seeing the 'Chesapeake's' men deserting the quarter-deck guns, he ordered the two ships to be lashed together, the great guns to cease firing, and Lieutenant Watt to bring up the quarter-deck men, who were to act as boarders.
A few hours afterward, when Captain Broke fell on the Chesapeake's decks fainting and covered with his own blood, his lieutenants, on loosening his clothes, found a small blue silk case suspended around his neck. It contained a lock of his wife's hair."
This was done instantly, and at two minutes past six Captain Broke leaped aboard the 'Chesapeake, followed by twenty men, and reached her quarter-deck. Here not an officer or man was to be seen. Upon the 'Chesapeake's' gangways, twenty-five or thirty Americans made a slight resistance, but were quickly driven towards the forecastle.
The enemy's crew were soon overpowered and driven below. Forcing his way forward, the Shannon's men shut down the Chesapeake's hatches and kept up a fire on the men in the tops, while the Shannon's men at the same time, under Mr. Smith, forced their way from the foreyard to the Chesapeake's mainyard, and soon cleared the tops.
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