Captain Boyle, in the privateer _Comet_, of Baltimore, made a remarkable cruise, early in 1813, on the coast of Brazil and in the West Indies. On the 14th of January he overhauled a Portuguese brig-of-war which was convoying three English merchantmen--a ship and two brigs--from Pernambuco. Boyle informed the captain that he had no right to do anything of the sort, and that he should proceed to make prizes of them. As the man-of-war insisted on protecting them, there was a fight--one vessel against four, for the merchantmen were heavily armed. It began at half past eight o'clock in the evening, and was carried on by moonlight. Every vessel had on a crowd of canvas. The _Comet_ {217}ran alongside the ship and one of the brigs, and opened her broadside upon both of them. The man-of-war then fired grape and round shot into the _Comet_, which returned the compliment, but stuck close to the merchantmen. They frequently separated, to give the man-of-war a chance at the privateer, when the privateer would pour a whole broadside into them, and then turn his attention to the larger antagonist. An hour after midnight, the ship, which had been badly cut to pieces and len-dered unmanageable, struck her flag; and soon afterward the two brigs, which had been almost as badly damaged, surrendered. All this while the man-of-war was hovering near and exchanging occasional broadsides with the _Comet_, till the moon set, and it became dark and squally. One of the brigs had been taken possession of by Boyle; the other and the ship, assisted by the man-of-war, escaped him and made their way back to Pernambuco. On the man-of-war the first lieutenant and five men were killed, and several wounded, the captain mortally. On the 25th of the same month, the privateer _Dolphin_, Captain W. S. Stafford, cruising off the coasts of Spain and Portugal, fell in with a large ship and a brig, and fought them both. The privateer carried ten guns, the ship sixteen, and the {218}brig ten. After a spirited action, in which the _Dolphin_ lost four men, she captured both of them, and sent them home to Baltimore. The same privateer, in November, was attacked just outside of Charleston harbor by five boats from an English man-of-war. Captain Stafford tore one of the boats to pieces by a discharge of grape-shot, and as the other boats had employment enough in saving their unfortunate comrades, the attack failed. The man-of-war then fired a broadside at the _Dolphin_ and sailed away. The privateer _Lottery_, Captain Southcomb, while at anchor in Chesapeake Bay, February 15th, was captured by nine British barges, in which were two hundred and forty men; but not till after a fight of an hour and a half, in which the six guns of the _Lottery_ had made sickening havoc with the men in the crowded barges. Captain Southcomb was badly wounded.