The little fleet got to sea early in the morning. At noon two sails were seen in the south, and Captain Barry, after signalling the convoy to steer close-hauled, ran down for a look at the strangers. Because the wind was light it took him the whole of the afternoon to learn their character, but at sundown he found they were two English frigates. At this Captain Barry ordered the merchantmen back to port, cleared his ship for action, and thereafter for forty-eight hours engaged in a game of hide-and-seek with the enemy wherein he had, now and again, the darkness of night, the horizon, and sundry fog-banks to conceal him.
An English Frigate of Forty Guns.
From an engraving by Verico.
On sending the merchantmen toward port Barry took that course himself, until the darkness wholly enveloped the enemy, when he again resumed his course. At dawn next day he found himself in a fog, and during the forenoon nothing could be seen, but at noon the fog disappeared, and then the enemy were again seen to the south on a course parallel to Barry’s.
Seeing this, Barry came up close-hauled and crowded on all sail, while the enemy came on in like dress until 3 or 4 o’clock, when another fog shut them from view. Then Barry headed away eastwardly with a free wind, and ran so until daylight on the 27th, when he furled the canvas and let her drift under bare poles until 6 o’clock, while he searched the horizon for the frigates.
Having seen nothing, Captain Barry made sail, and held a course to the southeast until 9.30, when he again saw the enemy. At this he came up to the wind, tacked about, and heading away to the northwest with “a staggering breeze,” the Raleigh made “11 knots and 2 fathoms on a dragged bowline,” per hour.
That was a pace that the Englishmen could not hold, and the Raleigh soon dropped them behind the horizon, but at noon the Raleigh ran out of the streak of wind, as a sailor might say, while the enemy were still holding it.
The leader of the frigates rapidly overhauled the Raleigh after that, and at 4 in the afternoon the Raleigh tacked to the west to see what the force of the leader was. Captain Barry hoped he might make a good fight with her single-handed before the other could come up, and at 5 in the afternoon “the Raleigh edged away, brailing her mizzen and taking in her staysails.” Crossing the enemy’s bows, the Raleigh dropped down abreast of him, and set the American ensign. The frigate, showing fourteen guns on a side, hoisted the king’s flag, and then the Raleigh gave her a broadside. She replied swiftly, and at the second fire had the good fortune to carry away the Raleigh’s foretopmast and mizzen-topgallantmast. She was now able to outsail the Raleigh, and so shot ahead to get clear of the too hot fire of the Yankee, and then began to fire at long range while Captain Barry was clearing away the wreck aloft. Once the wreckage was down, however, Barry bore up and strove to get alongside and board, but with her superior canvas the frigate avoided this. Meantime the other ship was coming near, and Captain Barry, finding he could not, in his crippled condition, maintain a fight with two, decided to run his ship ashore on some islands that were visible, for the fight was made off the coast of Maine.
And then night came on with a still fading breeze. The Raleigh, with all sail set, headed for the coast. The frigates followed, and until midnight the two ships drifted along with the red flames spurting from their sides, and the nearing cliffs echoing to the thunder of the conflict.