2. The British sloop Finch (d) having been wrecked, she grounded on Crab Island. A little later the British sloop Chubb (a), being disabled by the fire of the Yankee Eagle (No. 1), drifted down between the lines, hauled down her flag, and was carried to the beach by an American midshipman. About the same time the British gun-boats drove the Yankee sloop Preble away, and she sought safety at the beach.
3. This is about the position of the squadrons when the battle was going hard against the Americans. The Eagle (No. 1) had been driven from the head of the line to a place between the Saratoga (No. 2) and the Ticonderoga. The British brig Linnet (b) was raking the Saratoga, dismounting the Saratoga’s guns, while the gun-boats swarmed around the Ticonderoga (No. 3). It was then that Macdonough winded the ship, brought a fresh battery into play, and won the victory.
4. The British, when trying to wind the Confiance (c) around, as Macdonough had done with the Saratoga (No. 2), got her stern toward the Saratoga, and there she hung, exposed to the raking fire of the Saratoga’s fresh battery, and flesh and blood could not stand that. Meantime, the Ticonderoga had driven away the British gun-boats. When the flag of the Confiance came down, the Saratoga was turned just enough to bring her broadside to bear on the Linnet (b), and then the battle ended.
The supreme moment of the battle had now come. Calling his men from their useless guns, Macdonough ordered them to drop the anchor that had been provided at the stern and then to clap on the spring that led in at the forecastle. In a moment the ship, impelled by the breeze and drawn by the spring hawser, began to swing as if on a pivot. Her stern was soon pointed at the enemy’s frigate. A raking shot from the enemy struck the Saratoga’s bulwarks near Sailing-master Peter Blum as he directed the winding work, and the splinters literally tore all his clothes off of him. But he gathered up enough of the débris to wrap around his loins and so, dressed like a Cannibal islander, he continued his work. The British worked their guns furiously but, because of their fury, ineffectually, and the guns of the fresh Yankee battery were soon to come into play.
At that the British seamen on the Confiance were called from their guns and set to work on spring and cable to wind her around and bring a fresh battery to bear also, for while she had suffered less than the Saratoga had, the Confiance had lost perhaps two-thirds of her battery by the accurate shooting of Macdonough’s long guns.
No sooner did the British try to wind their ship than the superiority of Yankee forethought and seamanship became manifest. For while the Yankee Saratoga swung into position with scarce a break or stop, the British Confiance got so far around as to point her stern to the Yankees, where not one of her guns could bear, and there she stuck. Wriggle and twist, haul and curse, as they might (and did) the end was at hand, with triumph for the gridiron flag.
With a verve that made the side tackles rattle, the Yankees brought their fresh guns to bear on the unprotected stern of the British frigate, and thereafter their shot ripped up her deck from stern to anchor bits. They filled the air with splinters. They splashed the guns and beams with blood. They drove the men from the guns and left her a wreck.
Their commander, Captain Downie, was long since dead, killed by a gun that was knocked over by a Yankee shot to fall on him. Lieutenant John Robertson, who succeeded, was both brave and capable, but no one could stand up in such a fight, and two hours after firing her first broadside the British frigate struck her flag to the Yankee corvette.
And then the Yankees once more hauled in on their hawser until their guns would bear on the irritating British brig Linnet that had been bravely battering away at them. The Linnet was commanded by Captain Pring, of the Royal Navy, and he was spurred on by the fact that he had been beaten at the mouth of Otter Creek and had been reprimanded by Sir George Prevost. The odds were now as much against him as they had previously been against the Yankee Saratoga, but he held on bravely, hoping that relief would come from the gun-boats, while he sent a lieutenant in a boat over to the British flagship to learn the real condition of affairs. The lieutenant brought back the news that not only was the British frigate out of it, and her captain dead, but the Finch as well as the Chubb had surrendered, and the British gun-boats had been driven off when they swarmed at the Ticonderoga.
And then Captain Pring turned to look at his own vessel only to find that her masts were shot to pieces, her rigging gone, her sides full of shot holes and the water in her hold above the berth deck and rapidly rising. He had fought his ship to the last gasp. He had earned the right to haul down his flag with never a tinge of shame. Two hours and fifteen minutes after the dreadful broadside of the Confiance, the last British flag afloat fluttered to the deck, and the firing died out with two wide apart shots at the retreating gun-boats.