TWO NAVAL SONGS. 85 



All day the news of the expected collision was spread- 

 ing about the county, and it did not occur until the close 

 of the afternoon. By that time the hill tops were black 

 with spectators, and house tops and church spires, which 

 commanded a view of the outer islands, were swarming 

 also. Capt. Eben Slocum of Salem, afterwards for many 

 years an officer of the Revenue, who had been a prisoner 

 on one of His Majesty's ships, was set ashore at Marble- 

 head early in the day with a challenge from Captain Broke 

 of the Shannon, addressed to Captain Lawrence of the Ches- 

 apeake. This, Captain Slocum had sent forward by post 

 from Marblehead as promptly as possible, but Lawrence 

 waited for no challenge to spur him to activity, and had 

 already gone down to meet the Shannon when it reached 

 Boston. The late Admiral Preble, near the close of his 

 life, made an exhaustive study of this interesting fight, lo- 

 cating it very exactly by the aid of the report of the pilot 

 who took the Chesapeake out of Boston, and correspond- 

 ing with an English officer, who was himself a survivor of 

 the bloody day. The Admiral's Monograph on the subject 

 and the papers he collected and deposited with the Massa- 

 chusetts Historical Society leave little to be said on the 

 technical merits of the action.^ 



J See United Service Magrazine for October, 1879. Of this paper the late Rear Ad- 

 miral Boggs, a nephew of Lawrence, wrote, Dec. aO, 1887, ''He (Admiral Preble) 

 sent a copy to Admiral Provost Wallace of the Englii^h Navy, who was a young 

 officer attached to the Shannon at the time of the figlit. I saw the letter which this 

 gentleman wrote to Admiral Preble in return and it was indeed most compliment- 

 ary, particularly in reference to the accuracy with which the whole action was de- 

 scribed. I would refer you to this pami)hlet for the most reliable information on the 

 subject." See also, besides the more familiar authorities, Roosevelt's Naval War 

 of 1812, p. 178; Cooper's Naval Hietoi-y, Vol. II, p. 158; Irving's account in "Spanish 

 Papers," Vol. ii, p. 37, or in Analectical Magazine, Vol. ii, p. 129; Lossing's account 

 in his Pictorial Field Book of the War of 1812, Ch. XXXI, pp. 698-713. and in Har- 

 per's Moutldy, Vol. xxiv, p. 172; All the Year Round, Vol. vi, p. 310; Museum of 

 Literature and Science, Vol. iv, p. 562; Naval Chronicle [British], Vol. xxx, p. 183, 

 et passim; Bi-annan's Military and Naval Letters, p. 167; Thompson'ti Histoiical 

 Skt'tch of the Late War, p. 196 : Ingersol's History of the War of 1812, p. 391 ; Baine's 

 [Britislil History of the Late Wai-, Ch, vii, p. 90, and appendix xxiv, p. 28; Deunie'd 

 ESSEX INST. UULLETIN, VOL. XX. G* 



