The tender kept firing at them all the while they were unloading, but her shots fell harmlessly in the sand. Several of the soldiers picked up the balls as they fell, and carried them home to show to their families.
The tender now sent a barge back to summon the “Roebuck,” and presently, the frigate came sailing around the Cape at full speed to help the tender. She swept down toward the schooner like a great bird, but presently she found she was running into shoal water. She was obliged to come to anchor just off the Hen-and-Chicken shoals, but from there she began to fire at the soldiers and the schooner.
The Americans now turned the schooner’s guns on the frigate and tender. They saw a gunner on the frigate throw up his arms and fall. A number of the English were wounded, but not a single American was hurt. Presently, the frigate, finding it a losing game, sailed back around the Cape and out of reach.
No more shots were exchanged between the English and American vessels until May. Early in that month the “Roebuck” was joined by the sloop “Liverpool,” and the two with their tenders sailed straight up the bay and river toward Wilmington. Then they moved to and fro, between Chester and New Castle.
News of their coming went before them. At New Castle, houses were closed, and the people loaded their goods in wagons and carriages and fled back into the country.
At Wilmington, a number of row-galleys (some thirteen in number) were gathered and furnished with guns and ammunition, and were made ready in every way to give battle to the enemy. The galleys were under the command of Captain Houston, of Philadelphia.
It was on the morning of the eighth of May, that the British sails were seen coming up the river. Great crowds of people had gathered on the banks to watch the battle.
It was not until the British vessels were almost opposite Christiana creek that the firing began. The dull boom of the guns echoed and re-echoed from the wooded hills of the Brandywine. Great puffs of grey smoke drifted across the water. Sometimes the vessels were almost hidden.
In the midst of the battle, four Wilmington boys started out from the shore, armed with some old muskets that they had somehow got hold of. They boldly rowed out through the smoke until they were directly under the stern of the “Liverpool,” and then they began to fire at her. Presently, an officer on the sloop saw them.