A full moon was shining that night, and in the clear air of the Azores every move of the enemy was distinctly seen from the Armstrong and from the shore as well. The significance of the bustle on the Carnation was unmistakable, and Captain Reid, after clearing for action, got up his anchor, and with the aid of long oars began to sweep the Armstrong away from the enemy and close inshore. There was only a faint air blowing and no sails were set on the Armstrong. But as soon as the crew of the Carnation saw the Yankee leaving them they cut cable and made sail in pursuit while four boats were manned with armed men and sent after her.
It was now about eight o’clock. Seeing the boats coming Captain Reid dropped his anchor, got springs on his cable and then triced up a stout rope net all around the vessel above the rail—a net that the boarders could not quickly cut out of the way nor easily climb over. Then Captain Reid hailed them repeatedly but they made no reply, unless, indeed, the quickening of their stroke, which was manifest, was a reply.
That the four boats were making a dash to capture the Armstrong was not to be doubted and is not doubted now by any fair mind. In defence of his vessel attacked in a neutral harbor Captain Reid opened fire. The enemy returned the fire instantly and came on at their best stroke, but before they had reached the rail of the schooner they had had enough, and while some of them begged for quarter, they all turned about and rowed back to the Carnation.
The loss of the enemy in this preliminary skirmish was never printed, but the Armstrong lost one man killed and the First Lieutenant, Frederick A. Worth, wounded.
When the enemy had retired, the Armstrong was hauled in until within pistol shot of the Portuguese Castle on shore, and there she was moored, head and stern to the beach, after which the arms were all prepared for action and the crew, to a man, awaited the next assault with the hearty good-will characteristic of the American seamen when resisting insolent aggression. And meantime the whole population of the port, roused by the fire in the first attack, gathered on every height overlooking the Yankee’s berth to watch the issue. The Portuguese Governor was among those who saw it all.
Neither spectator nor sailorman had long to wait for the first manœuvre. By 9 o’clock the Carnation was seen drifting in with a large fleet of boats. Pretty soon the boats left the Carnation and gathered under shelter of a reef of rocks at long musket range from the Armstrong. Here they lay until midnight, when, after being divided into three divisions, of four boats each—the number of boats was easily counted by every spectator of the scene—they headed for the desperate Yankees.
The General Armstrong at Fayal.
Waiting until within close range Captain Reid opened on them. “The discharge from our long tom rather staggered them,” but they instantly recovered and, returning the fire with carronades, boat-howitzers, and muskets, they gave three cheers and bravely dashed in at the schooner. One round was all that Captain Reid could give them from his four cannon, for they were at the schooner’s low rail before he could reload. There was nothing for it then but to fight, man to man, man-fashion. With their sharpened cutlasses the British seamen strove to cut their way to the schooner’s deck, while the marines with muskets and bayonets strove to clear the Yankees away from the schooner’s rail. But the Yankees with muskets and pistols for a few rounds and with pikes and cutlasses and axes stood to their post and stabbed and slashed and chopped back. The British came on with fierce cheers and cries; the Yankees with close-shut mouths and bared arms split open the British heads down to the yelling mouths, and cut the throats and broke in the backs of those that twisted and turned to find a way on board. The enemy had come in three divisions; they swarmed at the stern and the waist and the bow. There were more than three hundred of them to the eighty-eight Americans, and for forty minutes the British fought with a vigor born of hatred, contempt, and mortified pride. But they were beating their heads and arms against a granite rock. Not once did an armed enemy stand for three seconds on the Armstrong’s deck. Because Second Lieutenant Alexander O. Williams was killed on the forecastle, and Third Lieutenant Robert Johnson was shot through the knee and unable to stand erect, the defence on the forecastle almost failed. But Captain Reid rallied his victorious shipmates from the quarter-deck and charging forward drove the last boat from the schooner’s bow.
Two of the enemy’s boats “which belonged to the Rota” were captured, “literally loaded with their own dead. Seventeen only had escaped from them both”—escaped by swimming ashore. The others, not less than fifty in number, were killed. Several boats were destroyed. “In another boat under our quarter, commanded by one of the lieutenants of the Plantagenet, all were killed save four. This I have from the lieutenant himself.” So says Captain Reid. The British officers admitted to Consul Dabney “that they have lost in killed, and who have died since the engagement, upward of one hundred and twenty of the flower of their officers and men. The captain of the Rota told me he lost seventy men from his ship.” So wrote the consul in his official report. Afterward “the British, mortified at this signal and unexpected defeat, endeavored to conceal the extent of their loss.”