One cannon
ball penetrated the boat, but Perry, stripping off his coat, stuffed it
into the hole and so kept the boat afloat until the Niagara was reached.
Clambering on board, Perry ran up his flags, reformed his line, closed
with the enemy, raked them, engaged them at close quarters, where their
long guns gave them no advantage, and conducted an onslaught so terrific
that, twenty minutes later, the entire British squadron had hauled down
their flags.
Perry at once rowed back to the Lawrence, and upon her splintered and
bloodstained deck, received the surrender of the British officers. Then,
using his cap for a desk, he wrote with a pencil on the back of an old
letter the famous message announcing the victory: "We have met the enemy
and they are ours--two ships, two brigs, two schooners and one sloop."
More than that was ours, for the victory, and the prompt advance of
General Harrison which followed it, compelled the British to evacuate
Detroit and Michigan, and to abandon forever the attempt to annex the
West to Canada. Half a century later, when the great Erie canal was
opened, the guns of Perry's fleet, placed at ten-mile intervals along
its banks, announced the departure of the first fleet of boats from
Buffalo, carrying the news to New York City, a distance of 360 miles, in
an hour and twenty minutes.
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