TWO NAVAL SONGS. 



The action between the Chesapeake and the Shannon 

 fought June 1, 1813, just outside of our harbor islands, pos- 

 sesses this unique interest for the people of Essex County 

 that it has been, down to this time, their only experience 

 of actual warfare. It occurred not twenty miles from 

 Boston Lio:ht. Here was one of the most o^allant and 

 bloody engagements of modern times, involving the lives 

 of many men well known in this community and fought 

 almost within ear-shot of our homes, the smoke of the con- 

 test darkening the horizon-line of our own waters and ob- 

 scuring the sunset glow of our own sky. 



Our harbor had long been patroled by foreign cruisers 

 flaunting before our eyes the insolent flag of a power from 

 which we had suffered much. It was well known that the 

 Chesapeake would, as soon as ready for sea, make the at- 

 tempt to rid our waters of this humiliating intruder, and 

 when at high noon Captain Lawrence, in the pride of youth 

 and manly beauty and flushed with recent success, marched 

 down State street in Boston on that fatal day to board his 

 ship, newly overhauled at Charlestown and in perfect trim, 

 expectation was on tip-toe all along both shores of the bay 

 and little was thought of in our section but the impending 

 action.^ 



* Hist. Coll, Essex Inst., Vol. xi, p. 37. See also a letter of Rev. Dr. Clias. Lowell, 

 in Boston Transcript for June 11, 185G, detailing his interview with Captain Law- 

 rence, and letters in the same Journal for June 3, and June C, 185U. 



(84) 



