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 {221}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 fishing{222}smack, 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.