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Enterprise and Boxer
Printed in The Bird of Birds, 1818. This ballad celebrates the capture of the British brig Boxer (Captain Samuel Blyth) by the American brig Enterprise, under the command of Lieutenant William Burrows, on September 5, 1813. Early in the engagement Blyth was killed and Burrows mortally wounded. The Boxer was brought as a prize into Portland harbor. "No incident in this quasi-civil war touched the sensibilities of the people more deeply than the common funeral of the two commanders, — both well known and favorites in the service, buried, with the same honors and mourners, in the graveyard at Portland overlooking the scene of the battle" (Henry Adams, History of the United States, VII, 283). The order of the funeral procession may be found in the Columbian Centinel (Boston) of September 11, 1813. The same issue contains an account of the fight, extracted from the Portland Argus.
Another contemporary American song (McCarty, II, 58) on the same sea-fight pays a tribute to both commanders:
The victory gain'd, we count the cost, We mourn, indeed, a hero lost!
Who nobly fell, we know, sirs; But Burrows, we with Lawrence find, Has left a living name behind,
Much honour'd by the foe, sirs.
And while we notice deeds of fame, In which the gallant honours claim,
As heroes of our story, The name of Blyth a meed demands, Whose tomb is deck'd by foemen's hands,
Who well deserve the glory. |
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