On August 19th, Captain Isaac Hull, commanding the Constitution of forty-four guns, engaged the British frigate Guerrière of thirty-eight guns, that very frigate which had been the great cause of quarrel about the English deserters, and after an action of half an hour, nearly every mast and spar being shot away, Captain Dacres, who commanded the Guerrière, struck his flag. One-third of the crew were either killed or wounded, while the American vessel lost only seven, and eight men wounded. The Guerrière was so shattered that it was impossible to get her into port, and she was burned. Again, on the 18th of October, the American sloop Wasp, of eighteen guns, commanded by Captain Jacob Jones, had an encounter with the British frigate Frolic, of twenty-two guns, which after a bloody fight of three-quarters of an hour, was boarded by the Americans, when only three officers and one seaman were found on the forecastle, while the decks, slippery with blood, were covered with the dead and dying. The Frolic lost eighty men, the Wasp only ten. The Wasp, with her prize, was captured the same day by a British seventy-four. A few days after, the frigate United States, commanded by Captain Decatur, engaged the British frigate Macedonian. The action lasted nearly two hours, when the Macedonian struck her colours, being nearly disabled, and her loss amounting to upwards of 100 men, while the Americans lost but five, and eight wounded. This engagement took place near the Canary Islands, and the prize was brought safely into New York harbour. Finally, in December, the Constitution, now commanded by Commodore Bainbridge, achieved a second victory, after a most desperate encounter with the Java, of forty-nine guns and four hundred men. The combat took place off the coast of Brazil; nor did the Java strike her flag until she was a mere wreck, with 161 killed and wounded. Like the Guerrière, she was burned. These naval victories were peculiarly gratifying to the Americans, especially as being gained on an element where the American citizens had suffered so much. Many British merchantmen were also captured by American privateers, which now issued from every port. Above 300 prizes was taken in the first seven months of the war.