The privateer Wasp, carrying two guns, had a battle of nine hours' duration, on the 31st of July, with the British war-schooner Bream, of ten guns. For the last forty-five minutes the action was at close quarters, and the Wasp then surrendered.
In August the privateer Decatur, carrying seven guns, Captain Dominique Diron, was cruising in the track of West India traders, when on the 5th she encountered the English war-schooner Dominica, of sixteen guns, and after a bloody battle captured her. It was at first a running fight, the Dominica firing frequent broadsides, and the Decatur answering with her Long Tom and volleys of musketry. After several futile attempts to board, Captain Diron succeeded in forcing his bowsprit over the enemy's stern, and sending the jib-boom through her mainsail. The next moment, while a part of his crew kept up the musketry fire, the remainder rushed on board the Dominica, and a hand-to-hand slaughter at once began. Men were cut down with swords, and shot with pistols, till the deck was covered with the dead and wounded. The English crew did not surrender till their captain, G. W. Barrette, was killed, all the other officers except the surgeon and one midshipman either killed or wounded, and altogether sixty men disabled. Of the Decatur's men, five were killed and fifteen wounded.
The Globe privateer had a desperate fight, on the 3d of November, with two heavily armed packet brigs. Broadside after broadside was exchanged at the distance of a few yards, and the brigs were compelled to strike. But when the Globe hauled alongside to take possession of one of them, she raised her colors again and fired a broadside; after which both brigs sailed slowly away, while the Globe, which had lost twenty-three men, was too badly crippled to follow.
The privateer Saratoga, of four guns, captured the English mail packet Morgiana, which carried eighteen guns, by boarding. There was an obstinate defence, and two of the packet's men were killed and five wounded, while the Saratoga lost three killed and seven wounded. During the fight the mail was thrown overboard.
Near the Canary Islands a British sloop-of-war decoyed the privateer Grampus under her guns, and then suddenly opened her ports and gave her a whole broadside at half pistol-shot. This discharge killed the captain and one man and wounded several others, and damaged the rigging badly, so that: the Grampus escaped with difficulty.
On Monday, the 5th of July, the Yankee, a fishingsmack, was fitted out in New York harbor to capture by stratagem the British sloop-of-war Eagle. A calf, a sheep, a goose, and three fishermen were placed conspicuously on the deck, while below were concealed forty men armed with muskets. She then sailed down the bay. The Eagle overhauled her, and ordered her to report to the Commodore. Suddenly, at the signal word "Lawrence," the forty men appeared, levelled their muskets across the deck of the Eagle, and with one volley killed three of her men and drove the others below. She struck without firing a gun, and as she was taken up the harbor she was greeted by the cheers of a multitude of people who were on the Battery, celebrating Independence day.
While an American fishing-smack was thus capturing a British sloop-of-war in the harbor of New York, on the other side of the ocean the London Evening Star was just saying: "The American navy must be annihilated; her arsenals and dockyards consumed. The American merchant-vessels ought perhaps to be permitted to arm against the pirates of the Mediterranean or the Ladrones of China; but, like certain places of entertainment in England, they ought to be compelled to exhibit in large letters, on their main-sails, Licensed to carry guns, pursuant to a British act of Parliament."