The Story Behind The Navy's Motto: Don't Give Up the Ship

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Take it away Bill. Well, the war of 1812 was a war of money and energy and stuff trying to keep the colonies intact. And what started the War of 1812 was two things. The British were insisting by force that any trade going from one U.S. port to another had to be done in a British ship. And also they wanted to govern all the trade routes going to Europe. And then the British Navy would then halt a merchant ship, a United States merchant ship, and take off the very young good sailors and essentially make them slaves on the British boats.

In fact, I'll tell you something that's very interesting. You know where the phrase son of a gun came from? It means an illegitimate child, a bastard. And on the British ships, they would name each cannon. Henry, George, Alex, Bill, Charles, Harold, etc. And that's how they know their gun. Okay, I gotta run to George.

Get on it. And when they would go into a port to get, say, work done on the boat, they had the Marines on board and they wouldn't let the people, they'd let the British crew members off. But they wouldn't let the impressed people off the boat because they knew they would run away. And so occasionally they would bring on prostitutes to satisfy the needs of the men. And one of the prostitutes would occasionally get pregnant and she would have a baby. And they would say, that's the son of a gun.

Because they didn't know whose gun it was. A lot of people don't know this, but the Royal Navy was the only meritocracy in the military of England. And the reason that it was a meritocracy is because the captains and the admirals shared the bounty with the king. And a lot of Lord Nelson's communications back and forth with the king was arguing over how much, what the split was. And so they wanted the very best captains of their warship.

It's economic. And so there's this one guy by the name of Captain Bloke who worked his way up from a cabin boy to be captain of the ship. And he also was sort of like Patton. He said, don't die for your country and let the other son die for his country. And he said, don't shoot the ship, shoot the gunners and shoot the officers. And Captain Lawrence, who was the captain of the Chesapeake, was transferred from the Hornet that sunk the British peacock in 15 minutes in a battle off Guyana.

And then he was transferred to Little Sistership of the Constitution, and that was the Chesapeake. And that was made out of lumber in Boston shipyards that were the leftovers for making these other big ships. And it was a smaller frigate, whereas the Constitution was much larger. But his ship was about the same size as the British ships, see. And one of the reasons that the Constitution won was because it was longer and bigger, it had more guns, and it had thicker walls.

So the cannonballs would bounce off of it. But anyway, this guy, Captain Bloke, was sent over to teach the Americans a lesson because the Americans had won so many sea battles. Actually, in that whole war, the British only won three sea battles of the Americans. Well anyway, one of the three that were lost was the Battle of the Chesapeake and the Shannon. Well, the Chesapeake was in Boston Harbor, and Lawrence, Captain Lawrence, had a real problem with the crew because they all wanted to join the privateers because they'd get more money.

They didn't want to get the US Navy pay. Well anyway, Captain Bloke toured around Boston for two weeks, trying to get Lawrence to come out to do battle, but with a raw crew, and he didn't know the ship very well, and he refused. And then finally, Captain Bloke wrote a letter and said, please would you come out and give me battle? And I promise it'll be gentleman to gentleman, I'll have no other ships awaiting, or lying in secret, and it'll be an honorable battle.

And we both respect each other, and we both have duty to our own countries. And so Lawrence, being a macho guy, immediately set sail. And Bloke then didn't want to fight off Boston, simply because if he lost, there was so much anti-British sentiment in Boston that his crew would get fed to the pigs.

And that's how they got rid of bodies in those days, because the pigs would eat the whole body and all the bones and everything. So Captain Bloke set off to go up to Newburyport, or somewhere up there, and then when he got to where he wanted, he slowed down, back to his sails and slowed down. And then Lawrence, his crew was so green and rebellious, he couldn't get them to do all the maneuvers to cross the T. You know what crossing the T is? Now if you have one battleship that's going forward, another battleship wants to cross perpendicular to it, because all his guns can fire at the ship that's going forward, and the forward ship can only fire his two guns forward. But he didn't cross the T, he just tried to come right alongside, and as he did, Bloke's crew just started shooting the crew of Lawrence's boat, and they even shot Lawrence. Well anyway, Lawrence was taken down below, and then they shot the helmsman, so the boat went up head to wind, and then went backwards, got in irons and went backwards. And when the stern of the Chesapeake hit the bow of the Shannon, then the Shannon boarded the Chesapeake and captured the boat.

And the battle only lasted, ironically, 15 minutes as well. But Captain Lawrence died after he was carried down, and his dying words, don't give up the ship, which came the motto in the American Navy. Now the reason I collect those is because that was one of my mother's ancestors, so of course I fell in love with the sea. I have a collection of all the paintings that were done of that battle, and because my ancestor lost, and the English won, only English painters did it.

And here, come in here. This is the guy that beat my ancestor. If you see the painting, he's standing on the American flag. He's got a medal, he's got this, the sword. Here's his sword, and here's his medal. I say I'm getting even with the SOB, because his family ran out of money, and they were selling all this stuff, so I bought it all. It was actually his ancestors? Yeah, his ancestors.

So, I'm getting even with them. Only in America. And a special thanks to Monty Montgomery for the production on that piece, and a special thanks to Bill Koch for sharing his story. What a joy to listen to him share with us in the end why sailing matters so much to him. Again, he won the America's Cup on his first try. That's just astonishing. And it turns out his affinity for sailing finds its roots in what he called America's second revolution, the War of 1812.

The story of Bill Koch, the story of the War of 1812, and our Navy's motto, all here on Our American Stories. Introducing Uber Teen Accounts, an Uber account for your teen with always-on enhanced safety features. Your teen can request a ride when you can't take them. You'll get real-time notifications along the way. Your teen can feel a sense of independence. You can follow their entire route on a live tracking map. Your teen will get assigned the top-rated drivers. You will get peace of mind.

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