"Don't give up the ship."

Those famous words -- informally adopted by the U.S. Navy as its rallying cry -- were spoken by mortally wounded Captain James Lawrence of the U.S. frigate Chesapeake near the end of a brief, bloody battle with HMS Shannon off the Boston coast on June 1, 1813.

But his officers and crew, outmatched by the British ship led by Captain Philip Broke, gave it up in spite of those heroic words. And the ship -- one of the first in the United States' fledgling navy -- ended its days in England, its wood salvaged and used in the construction of a mill in Wickham, where it remains today.

Chris Dickon explores the storied history of the famous ship in The Enduring Journey of the USS Chesapeake: Navigating the Common History of Three Nations.

Dickon tracks the Chesapeake from her inception -- an order by Congress to build the nation's first navy, six frigates strong, in 1794 -- to her ignominious end.

Chesapeake, launched in December 1799, was the runt of the litter -- smaller than the other ships in the navy and built largely by slaves. She served -- adequately but unremarkably -- during the Quasi-War with France and the First Barbary War.

The ship's encounter with HMS Leopard -- a British ship seeking the return of British sailors -- on June 22, 1807, was one of the sparks leading to the War of 1812. Chesapeake was caught unprepared when Leopard fired several broadsides into her; three sailors were killed outright, 18 officers and sailors wounded, and the American navy had received a black eye from a supposed ally.

Then on June 1, 1813, Chesapeake lost in a fast, furious duel with HMS Shannon outside Boston Harbor -- a devastating loss that ended her career in the U.S. Navy. She was employed for six years by the British before the ship was broken up and sold as timber.

Overall, Dickon presents a thorough and interesting history of the ship. He wanders off course on a few occasions, however, focusing on dull topics -- such as an unofficial visit to a Canadian cemetery and a battle in France during World War I -- that are only tangentially related to the ship itself.

I found the final third of Dickon's book to be tedious stuff, and by that point I was eager to be done with it. Still, the earlier portion of his history was a fascinating read, well worth the time spent.