8th Position. The two ships foul fore and aft; the Serapis’s larboard anchor on the bottom, her starboard caught in the Richard’s starboard quarter-port. So both ships remained until the close of the action.
7th Position. The Richard runs athwart hawse of the Serapis.
6th Position. The Richard fills her topsails, and the Serapis backs hers, which brings the two ships broadside and broadside.
5th Position. The Richard backs clear of the Serapis.
4th Position. The Serapis, not having room to cross the Richard’s bow, luffs up, and the Richard runs into her quarter.
3d Position. The Serapis rakes the Richard and attempts to cross her bow.
2d Position. The Serapis passes to windward of the Richard.
1st Position. Battle begins at 7.30 P. M.
A party of twenty soldiers had been placed upon the quarter-deck of the Richard, to pick off the gunners of the enemy, with their muskets. But they were assailed by such a murderous storm of grape-shot, that torn and bleeding, and leaving many dead upon the deck, they ran below. Men were stationed high up in the rigging of both the ships, who kept up an incessant fire upon all exposed persons.
The two vessels, sometimes touching each other and again separated by but a few feet, moved slowly along, side by side, dealing such terrific blows as to cause each to stagger. They often crossed each other’s track, now passing the bow and again the stern. Captain Jones’s battery of twelve-pounders, upon which he had placed his main reliance, was soon entirely silenced. As in this terrible struggle broadside answered broadside, Captain Jones saw that the superiority of his enemy in weight of metal would inevitably give him the victory, if that mode of warfare were continued; especially as his own vessel was old and easily torn to pieces by the foe-man’s shot, while the Serapis was new, with solid timbers almost like ribs of steel. He resolved to board the foe.