On this date in 1813, Oliver Hazard Perry launched two immortal naval quotations...

On September 10, 1813, American ships under the command of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry engaged a British naval squadron on Lake Erie during the War of 1812.

Perry’s flagship was a 20-gun brig that had recently been renamed The Lawrence, in honor of his fallen friend, U.S. Navy Captain James Lawrence.

On June 1, 1813, Capt. Lawrence was mortally wounded during a fight between American and British ships near Boston.

It was reported that, as he lay dying, Lawrence said: “Tell the men to fire faster and not give up the ship. Fight her till she sinks.”

Commodore Perry helped immortalize the pithier, more famous version of this quote.

He had a special battle flag made that said “DON’T GIVE UP THE SHIP.” And, during the September 10th battle on Lake Erie, it was defiantly unfurled on The Lawrence.

It the June naval engagement that the took the life of Capt. Lawrence, the British had prevailed.

But in the Battle of Lake Erie, the Americans won a decisive victory and captured all of the British ships.

Commodore Perry quickly scrawled a brief report on the back of an envelope and had it sent to U.S. General William Henry Harrison.

He wrote:

Dear General:
We have met the enemy and they are ours. Two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop. Yours with great respect and esteem, 
O.H. Perry

The first line of his message, “We have met the enemy and they are ours,” became one of the most famous Naval quotations in US history.

And, the special battle flag Perry flew that day made turned short version of Capt. Lawrence’s dying words an immortal naval motto.

Perry’s flag is now on display at The United States Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, Maryland.

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The origins of “Rum, sodomy and the lash” – Churchill’s alleged quip about British naval tradition…

Many books of quotations include a caustic quote attributed to Winston Churchill (1874-1965) in which he supposedly called British naval tradition nothing but “rum, sodomy, and the lash.” (Sometimes given as “rum, buggery and the lash,” using the old British slang term “buggery” to refer to homosexual sex.)

The earliest source commonly cited for this quip is the diary of former British diplomat, politician and author Harold Nicolson (1886-1968).

In a diary entry dated August 17, 1950, Nicolson recorded some anecdotes about Churchill.

One involves a version of the “rum, sodomy, and the lash” quote.

But the version Nicolson wrote about that day included “prayers” in the litany. His diary entry says:

…when Winston was at the Admiralty, the Board objected to some suggestion of his on the grounds that it would not be in accord with naval tradition. ‘Naval tradition? Naval tradition?’ said Winston. ‘Monstrous. Nothing but rum, sodomy, prayers and the lash.’

This is why some books of quotations give the alleged Churchill quote as “rum, sodomy, prayers and the lash.”

The source commonly cited for the shorter version of the naval tradition quip is a book of reminiscences by former British Vice-Admiral Peter Gretton (1912-1992). According to an anecdote in Sir Peter Gretton, Former Naval Person: Winston Churchill and the Royal Navy (1968), Churchill said it shortly after he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911.

With his new authority, Churchill had ordered the British fleet to convert from coal to oil and was mothballing older ships in favor of smaller, faster ones.

A disgruntled Admiral indignantly told Churchill he was scuttling the tradition of the Royal Navy. Gretton wrote that Churchill answered:

       “Don’t talk to me about naval tradition. It’s nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.”

Despite these oft-cited anecdotes, it appears that Winston Churchill never said any version of the naval tradition quote.

According to a post on the website of the Churchill Centre and Museum in London, Churchill told his personal assistant Anthony Montague-Browne that he never uttered such words.

Montague-Browne confirmed this to Richard Langworth, one of the most respected Churchill biographers.

In his great book about Churchill quotations and misquotes, Churchill by Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations, Langworth says that Montague-Browne personally told him that he had asked Churchill about the quote.

According to Montague-Browne, Churchill responded: “I never said it. I wish I had.”

Langworth notes that “rum, sodomy and the lash” is similar to “rum, bum and bacca” — a catchphrase from an old saying about the, er, pastimes of British sailors, dating back to the 1800s:

     “Ashore it’s wine, women and song; aboard it’s rum, bum and concertina.” (Bum = a man’s rear end; bacca = tobacco.)

At any rate, it seems that attributing a quotation about rum, sodomy and the lash to Winston Churchill is nothing but an old British naval tradition.

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