“Ram home wad and cartridge.”
“Shot the gun-wad.”
“Run out the gun.”
“Lay down handspikes and crows.”
“Point your gun.”
“Fire.”
The Yankee crew could hear the huzzas of the English gunners as the Achilles sought to gain the advantage of position. Captain Haraden had so placed his ship between the land and a line of shoals, that in closing with him the Achilles must receive a raking broadside fire. He knew that if it came to boarding, his little band must be overwhelmed by weight of numbers and he showed superb seamanship in choosing and maintaining a long range engagement.
The Pickering was still deep laden with sugar, and this, together with her small size, made her a difficult target to hull, while the Achilles towered above water like a small frigate. The Americans fired low, while the English broadsides flew high across the decks of the Pickering. This rain of fire killed the British volunteer boatswain aboard the Pickering and wounded eight of the crew early in the fight. Captain Haraden was exposed to these showers of case and round shot, but one of his crew reported that “all the time he was as calm and steady as amid a shower of snowflakes.”
Meanwhile a multitude of spectators, estimated to number at least a hundred thousand, had assembled on shore. The city of Bilboa had turned out en masse to enjoy the rare spectacle of a dashing sea duel fought in the blue amphitheater of the harbor mouth. They crowded into fishing boats, pinnaces, cutters and row boats until from within a short distance of the smoke-shrouded Pickering the gay flotilla stretched to the shore so closely packed that an onlooker described it as a solid bridge of boats, across which a man might have made his way by leaping from one gunwale to another.
Captain Haraden was on the defensive. The stake for which he fought was to gain entrance to the port of Bilboa with his cargo and retake his prize, nor did he need to capture the Achilles to win a most signal victory. For two hours the two privateers were at it hammer and tongs, the British ship unable to outmaneuver the Yankee and the latter holding her vantage ground. At length the commander of the Achilles was forced to decide that he must either run away or be sunk where he was. He had been hulled through and through and his rigging was so cut up that it was with steadily increasing difficulty that he was able to avoid a raking from every broadside of his indomitable foe. It is related that he decided to run immediately after a flight of crowbars, with which the guns of the Pickering had been crammed to the muzzles, made hash of his decks and drove his gunners from their stations.