two hours he sustained the unequal conflict without flinching. It was
his first battle, and, moreover, he was enfeebled by a fever from which
he had just risen; but he never lost his ease and confidence. When most
of his men had fallen, when his ship lay an unmanageable wreck on the
water, 'every brace and bowline shot away,' and all his guns were
rendered ineffective, he still remained calm and unmoved.

"Eighteen men out of one hundred stood alive on his deck; many of those
were wounded. Lieutenant. Yarnell, with a red handkerchief tied round
his head and another round his neck to stanch the blood flowing from two
wounds, stood bravely by his commander. But all seemed lost when,
through the smoke, Perry saw the Niagara approaching uncrippled.

"'If a victory is to be won I will win it,' he said to the lieutenant.
He tore down his flag with its glorious motto,--'Don't give up the
ship,'--and leaping into a boat with half a dozen others, told the
sailors to give way with a will. The Niagara was half a mile distant to
the windward, and the enemy, as soon as they observed his movement,
directed their fire upon his boat. Oars were splintered in the rowers'
hands by musket-balls, and the men themselves covered with spray from
the roundshot and grape that smote the water on every side. But they
passed safely through the iron storm, and at last reached the deck of
the Niagara, where they were welcomed with thundering cheers. Lieutenant
Elliot of the Niagara, leaving his own ship, took command of the Somers,
and brought up the smaller vessels of the fleet, which had as yet been
little in the action. Perry ran up his signal for close action, and from
vessel to vessel the answering signals went up in the sunlight and the
cheers rang over the water. All together now bore down upon the enemy
and, passing through his line, opened a raking crossfire. So close and
terrible was that fire that the crew of the Lady Prevost ran below,