230 Naval War of 1812 



once cut down or dispersed, Lieutenant Budd being 

 wounded and knocked down the main hatchway. 

 "The enemy," writes Captain Broke, "fought des 

 perately, but in disorder." Lieutenant Ludlow, al 

 ready mortally wounded, struggled up on deck, fol 

 lowed by two or three men, but was at once disabled 

 by a sabre cut. On the forecastle a few seamen 

 and marines turned to bay. Captain Broke was 

 still leading his men with the same brilliant per 

 sonal courage he had all along shown. Attacking 

 the first American, who was armed with a pike, he 

 parried a blow from it, and cut down the man; at 

 tacking another he was himself cut down, and only 

 saved by the seaman Mindham, already mentioned, 

 who slew his assailant. One of the American ma 

 rines, using his clubbed musket, killed an English 

 man, and so stubborn was the resistance of the little 

 group that for a moment the assailants gave back, 

 having lost several killed and wounded; but im 

 mediately afterward they closed in and slew their 

 foes to the last man. The British fired a volley or 

 two down the hatchway, in response to a couple of 

 shots fired up; all resistance was at an end, and at 

 6.05, just fifteen minutes after the first gun had 

 been fired, and not five after Captain Broke had 

 come aboard, the colors of the Chesapeake were 

 struck. Of her crew of 379 men, 61 were killed 

 or mortally wounded, including her captain, her 

 first and fourth lieutenants, the lieutenant of ma 

 rines, the master (White), boatswain (Adams), 

 and three midshipmen, and 85 severely and slightly 



