The Wasp Boarding the Frolic.
From an old wood-cut.
Lieutenant Biddle jumped on the bulwarks to lead the boarders, but because of the surging of his ship he got his feet caught among the hammocks. Little Midshipman Baker, who was entitled to second place, being too small to jump to the top as Biddle had done, saw Biddle’s coat-tails flopping in the gale and grabbed hold of them to help himself up. He got part way up when another surge of the ship threw both of them violently back to the deck.
All this time Jack Lang was alone on the enemy, but Biddle soon regained the top of the bulwarks, and then, followed by others, crossed over the enemy’s bowsprit. He found Jack Lang standing alone on the topgallant forecastle and looking away aft over the enemy’s deck.
At the wheel on the quarter deck stood a grizzled quarter-master, bleeding from a wound, but firm in staying at his post. Beyond him in a group at the taffrail stood three officers, two of whom were wounded. And that was all. Not another living man could be seen, though there were dead enough strewn about the deck, and the water that came in through the scuppers, deeply reddened by their blood, swashed to and fro over them and up the painted bulwarks at every roll.
The flag of the enemy was still flying, but as Lieutenant Biddle and his men started aft the three officers at the taffrail threw down their swords in token of surrender, while one buried his face in his hands and turned away. So Lieutenant Biddle himself hauled down the flag and reported the surrender of the ship to Captain Jones.
From an original water color, by H. Rich at the Naval Academy, Annapolis.
When the Americans came to examine their prize they were astonished at the result of their gunnery. The lower deck was simply covered over with wounded men. The Frolic had carried a crew of one hundred and ten all told, and less than twenty of them remained unwounded. Captain Whinyates and Lieutenant Frederick B. Wintle were among the wounded, and another lieutenant and the master were among the killed. Whinyates and Wintle were so badly wounded that they were obliged to lean on the taffrail for support when the Frolic was boarded. Only their pluck kept them from going below. The masts of the Frolic were so badly cut that the mainmast broke off at the deck soon after the two vessels drifted apart, and the foremast twelve feet above the deck. Her hull was full of holes.