William Burrows was one of those men from whose early training and development of character great things might have been expected. He was born in 1785, near Philadelphia, and as a boy he had marked peculiarities that presaged somewhat the eccentricities that were shown by him in after-life.

His father was wealthy, and, being a man of accomplished mind and polished manners, he determined to fit his son for no profession, but intended to give him the best education that could be had. But the boy seemed to show little desire to master that which would only fit him to enjoy the better a life of leisure. A desire for travel, a wild longing for the sea and for ships, manifested itself before he was twelve years old. He cherished a solitary independence of mind, and did not indulge in much of the playfulness or the pranks of boyhood.

At last, seeing that it was impossible to break him of his desire for a seafaring life, the whole course of his education was changed, and before he had trod the deck of a vessel he was instructed in naval science. This he took up with avidity, and the intense hatred for mathematics he had shown hitherto entirely disappeared. In November, 1799, a midshipman’s warrant was procured for him, and the following January he joined the corvette Portsmouth, and sailed for France. He served on board various ships of war until 1803, when he was ordered to the frigate Constitution, under Commodore Preble. He distinguished himself in the Tripolitan war, and centred all his pride in becoming a thorough and accomplished sailor. Being mortified by the appointment of some junior officers over his head, he attempted to resign the service just previous to the outbreak of the second war with Great Britain; his resignation was not accepted. However, after much trouble, he received a furlough, and made a trip to China as first officer on board the merchant ship Thomas Penrose, which vessel he saved on one occasion by his good seamanship. What was his delight, upon coming back to his country, to find that his friends had been working for him, and that he had been appointed to the command of the brig Enterprise, 16 guns, at Portsmouth! His character immediately underwent a change. He threw off the misanthropic manner and the morose feelings that had characterized him, and showed such knowledge and despatch in outfitting his little brig that she was probably as well equipped as any vessel of her tonnage in any service, and her crew as well trained.

On the 1st of September the Enterprise sailed from Portsmouth on a cruise to the southward. She encountered light weather and baffling winds, and saw no sail until early on the morning of the 5th, when a brig was espied inshore getting under way. For some time the Enterprise tacked to and fro, unable to ascertain the character of the stranger. But soon all doubts were put aside by seeing the brig display two flags, one at each mast-head; and although some miles distant, she fired a gun, as if in challenge.

The Enterprise hauled up on the wind and stood out to sea, preparing for action. Then followed one of the strange circumstances which happened so often in those days. The wind died away, and for six hours or more the two enemies drifted about in a dead calm, watching each other through their glasses, and preparing for the conflict that would take place as soon as the breeze would enable them to lessen the distance between them.

At half-past two in the afternoon it came, from the southwest, a light wind that gave the Enterprise the advantage of the weather-gage. It took only a few minutes to find out that, so far as sailing went, the two vessels were on equal terms, and at 3 P.M. Burrows shortened sail, squared his yards, and bore down before the wind. He hoisted an ensign at each of his mast-heads and another at the peak, firing a gun to answer the previous challenge of the morning. Then, in silence, the two vessels neared. Closer and closer they came without a shot being fired, the men at the guns being eager to commence, and the officers anxiously awaiting word from the young commander (Burrows was but twenty-eight), who was walking quickly to and fro alone on the quarter-deck.

When within half pistol-shot the Englishman came up into the wind and gave three cheers, immediately letting go his starboard broadside. The cheers and the broadside were returned, and the action at once became general.

Burrows had the opportunity for which he had been praying. He noticed that the training of his crew was showing to good effect; all the care and trouble he had taken were now being paid for.

He had turned to speak to Lieutenant McCall, to attract attention to the way in which the enemy was being hulled, when a musket-ball struck him in the body, and he fell. McCall bent over him. “Don’t take me below,” he said, as he lay on the deck. “Never strike that flag.”

Maybe the recollection of the words of the great Lawrence influenced him as he spoke. They brought a hammock from the nettings and placed it underneath his head, and McCall assumed the active command.

This had happened during the first eight minutes of the engagement, and so accurate was the gunnery of the Americans that the main-topmast and the topsail yard of the Englishman were soon shot away, and a position gained whence a raking fire was kept up for some twelve minutes.

Suddenly it was noticed that the enemy was not replying, although the colors were still flying at the mast-heads.

McCall gave orders to cease firing, and then through the smoke came a hoarse voice hailing the American brig. “Cease firing there!” it said. “We have surrendered.”

“Why don’t you haul down your colors?” returned McCall through the trumpet.

“We can’t, sir. They are nailed to the mast,” was the reply.

A boat was lowered from the Enterprise, and McCall climbed to the deck of his late antagonist. She proved to be His Britannic Majesty’s brig Boxer, 14 guns, that a few minutes before had been commanded by Samuel Blyth, a brave officer, who burned to distinguish himself, and had gone into action determined to follow the example of Sir Philip Vere Broke, and lead “a captured Yankee into Halifax Harbor”—so he had expressed himself. But he had not lived to see the outcome of the action. At the same time that Burrows fell on board the Enterprise, Blyth was killed by a cannon-shot on the quarter-deck of the Boxer.

His first officer came back with Lieutenant McCall, and approached the wounded Burrows, who yet refused to be carried below. The doctor had pronounced that he had but a few hours at most to live.

When he received the sword of his enemy, he grasped it in both hands. “I am satisfied,” he said; and soon afterwards he was covered with the flag below in his own cabin—“a smile on his lips,” wrote one of the officers.

As usual, much controversy was excited in regard to the numbers of crew and armament of the two vessels.

An extract from a letter from Commodore Hull to Commodore Bainbridge, dated September 10th, 1813, is of great interest. Hull writes:

“I yesterday visited the two brigs, and was astonished to see the difference of injury sustained in the action. The Enterprise has but one eighteen-pound shot in her hull, one in her main-mast, and one in her foremast; her sails are much cut with grape-shot, but no injury was done by them.

“The Boxer has eighteen or twenty eighteen-pound shot in her hull, most of them at the water’s edge; several stands of grape-shot in her side, and such a quantity of smaller grape that I didn’t undertake to count them. Her masts, sails, and spars are literally cut to pieces; several of her guns dismounted and unfit for service. To give an idea, I inform you that I counted in her main-mast alone three eighteen-pound shot-holes.

“I find it impossible to get at the number killed, as no papers are found by which we can ascertain it. I, however, counted upwards of ninety hammocks that were in her nettings, besides several beds without hammocks. I have no doubt that she carried one hundred men on board.”

The exact number on board the Enterprise was one hundred and two.

In addition to the particulars thus officially given, from other sources it was ascertained that the Enterprise rated as 12 guns, but carried 16—viz., 14 eighteen-pound carronades and 2 long nines; her officers and crew consisted of one hundred and two persons, and her burden was about two hundred and sixty-five tons.

The Boxer rated as a 14-gun brig, but carried 18, disposed as follows: 16 eighteen-pound carronades in her broadsides and 2 long nines on deck. She was very heavily built, and was about three hundred tons in burden.

Soon after the arrival of the Enterprise and her prize at Portland the bodies of the two dead commanders were brought on shore in ten-oared barges rowed at minute strokes by masters of ships, and accompanied by a procession of almost all the barges and boats in the harbor. Minute-guns were fired from the vessels, the same ceremony was performed over each body, and the procession moved through the streets, preceded by the selectmen and the municipal officers, and guarded by the crew of the Enterprise, all the officers of that vessel and of the Boxer acting as joint mourners.

It is a strange fact that Burrows had never been in a battle before, and that McCall, on whom had devolved the responsibility of command, had never previously heard the sound of a hostile shot.

The losses during the action were, as near as could be ascertained, as follows:

The Boxer, twenty-eight killed and fourteen wounded; and the Enterprise, one killed and thirteen wounded, three of whom afterwards died.