Texts on this broadside, Written and Corrected by James Campbell, as well as on The Battle Between the Chesapeake and Shannon and Chesapeake and Shannon, are part of the public response to the devastating battle between Shannon and Chesapeake that took place within sight of Boston on June 1, 1813. The first text on Written and Corrected by James Campbell develops into an antislavery statement, the only one in the Thomas collection. It reviews the glory of the United States’ fight for the “rights of mankind” from the Declaration of Independence and George Washington’s successes to the gratefulness felt by the “old peasant” for “brave Lawrence” and Ludlow. The final verse is quite directly antislavery.
How can you who have felt the oppressor’s hard hand,
Who for freedom all perils did brave;
How can you enjoy ease, while one foot of your soil
Is disgrac’d by the toil of a slave.
O rouse then in spite of a merciless few,
And pronounce this immortal decree,
That “what’ere be man’s tenets, his fortune, his hue,
He is a man, and shall therefore be free.”
While legal slavery had ended in Massachusetts with the state constitution of 1783 and its claim of the “rights of man,” the issue of returning slaves who arrived in Massachusetts from other states was not so clear. As Bradford Verter has pointed out, “in the years following the Revolution, . . . most urban centers in the Northeast [were] radically transformed. . . . An aristocratic stronghold over local government weakened under pressure from Jeffersonian Democrats and labor activists. Finally, the institution of slavery became increasingly untenable in the face of abolitionist rhetoric and African American unrest” (400-401).
Although Coverly credits this entire song in large type to James Campbell, he is merely capitalizing on the success he had selling Campbell’s other songs dealing with battles of USS Constitution (see A New Song and Glorious Naval Victory). The language of this song is not at all in the style of Campbell’s other songs and the text of the final verse was actually written by Edward Rushton of Liverpool, England, probably in 1796. It was published in the Baltimore Federal Gazette on July 5, 1797. This final stanza was not included when the text appeared in several newspapers in 1807, but Coverly evidently felt that, with a few updates, it was appropriate for his customers in 1813.
Commander Martin expands on the events described in the four opening verses:
Master Commandant James Lawrence had been a disgruntled man when he sailed in command of USS Hornet in October 1812. Lieutenant Charles Morris, second senior officer in Constitution when she defeated HMS Guerriere, had been double-promoted over the heads of all master commandants to the rank of captain. Lawrence had come very close to resigning in protest.
His victory over HMS Peacock early in the new year had improved his morale, for he knew that when the news got out at home, there would be a gold medal and much public acclaim. It got still better when he did arrive home to find that, in his absence, he had been promoted to captain. And, presumably, he was back in top form when he learned he was in line to get command of the now-famous Constitution, then undergoing repairs at the Boston Navy Yard.
But his varying fortune continued to swing, and when Captain Samuel Evans requested to be relieved of command of USS Chesapeake (thirty-six guns) because of a worsening eye problem, and because his ship was more nearly ready to go to sea than Constitution, the on-scene convenience of James Lawrence led to his orders being changed to that ship.
Boston at that time had been tightly blockaded since the start of the year, and British warships were an all-too-familiar sight even as close in as Boston Light. To some, it was an insult to be rebuffed; to others, an opportunity to trade, and a surreptitious communication existed between the enemies. Lawrence, as was proper for a naval officer, was among the former group, and evidently felt very strongly that something had to be done about it. Why he decided he should be the one, we don’t know. Perhaps he felt he had to do something to counterbalance his disgruntlement of a few months earlier. Perhaps he felt pressures as a freshly promoted captain to ‘do something.’ Perhaps he felt the compelling call to ‘glory.’ One thing is certain: contrary to an enduring popular story, he did not respond to a written challenge from Captain Philip Bowes Vere Broke of HMS Shannon of thirty-eight guns.
In any event, on June 1, 1813, Captain Lawrence sailed his ship and its green, slightly trained crew directly at Shannon, then lying to near Boston Light. Shannon was one of the sharpest frigates in the Royal Navy, her captain a demon for gunnery training and an innovator in ways to make it more effective. Lawrence seems to have intended to bring his ship alongside his foe and slug it out, an appropriate thing to do with a crew as inexperienced as his as it was the simplest form of combat. But from the outset, things went wrong. He couldn’t control his sails fast enough to come to abeam of Shannon, and Chesapeake continued to slide ahead. Worse yet, her head fell off to starboard, exposing her larboard quarter to Broke’s guns while simultaneously preventing the return fire from all of his. The issue never was in doubt. British fire quickly swept Chesapeake’s upper decks, rendering nearly all of her officers dead or wounded and leaving her crew without direction. Lawrence himself was mortally hit, and was taken below to the Surgeon. British boarders, led by Captain Broke himself, surged aboard and completed the debacle in about fifteen minutes. There, in full horrified sight of many ashore, the myth of American invincibility came to a crashing end—and yet not completely. The press and balladeers quickly rendered Lawrence’s death glorious, forever enhanced by his reported last order: ‘Don’t give up the ship!’
The battle done, Shannon sailed with Chesapeake to Halifax, Nova Scotia. There, Lawrence and his next senior officer, Lieutenant Augustus C. Ludlow, were buried with full military honors. Chesapeake was taken into the Royal Navy. James Lawrence’s memory has been kept alive in the US Navy by a succession of five ships bearing his name. (Dudley, vol. 2; Forester)
While the opening line is the same as the opening of “Adams and Liberty,” that tune (see Columbia and Independence) does not fit the remainder of this text.
The unfortunate and rather rash sea battle between Chesapeake and Shannon and the inevitable slaughter that followed inspired public mourning that seems somewhat overblown, but verses such as “On the Death of Augustus C. Ludlow” must have fulfilled community needs in many towns. Although Ludlow was born in Newburgh, New York, in 1792 and Lawrence in Burlington, New Jersey, in 1781, odes appeared in the Halifax paper as well as in Boston and a full Masonic memorial was held in Wilmington, Delaware.
A sixty-four page Account of the Funeral Honours Bestowed on the Remains of Captain Lawrence and Lieutenant Ludlow. With the Eulogy Pronounced at Salem, on the Occasion, by Hon. Joseph Story was published in Boston before the year was out. It included an account of the engagement and “biographical and poetical notices”—more poems lauding the two heroes of the battle. The same year the Masons of Wilmington had their tribute printed: Eulogium on Captain James Lawrence and Lieutenant A. C. Ludlow (1813) as did those in Kingston, New York (Gardenier). The opening of the lyric on the broadside is derived from a six-verse ode by Lucius M. Sargent (1786-1867), written for the first celebration of the Washington Benevolent Society of Massachusetts on April 30, 1812.
Great spirit of the mighty dead,
From Heaven descend and linger here;
Around thy holy influence shed,
Be near in peace, in battle near.
Chorus:
Still Columbia’s guardian be
Still we will “REMEMBER THEE.” (Lathrop, Tisdale, and Sargent)[1]
While the first verse is similar, the remaining verses are entirely different. Through all of this, little mention is made of the rest of the crew, most of whom also lost their lives.
The tune indication, “Disconsolate Sailor,” refers to a song that begins “When my money was gone that I gain’d in the wars,” written by George Saville Carey (1743-1807) and set to music by James Hook. It was published as a single sheet song in 1784 and appeared in Walker’s Hibernian Magazine in October 1789.
![Sheet Music for "The Disconsolate Sailor"](https://www.americanantiquarian.org/thomasballads/files/square_thumbnails/6bc3af7f3172e3add1f6bef5859339f6.jpg "Sheet Music for "The Disconsolate Sailor"")
