Some most gallant acts were performed, and one captain led on his men sword in hand until his boat was sinking under him, when he stepped from it into one that was passing, and, in spite of the deadly storm of missiles which flew around him, coolly tore a strip of blue serge off a sailor's garment, and hoisting the scrap upon a boat-hook, cried, "The blue never surrenders," then again cheered the sailors on to the attack. He had with him in his gig a fine Newfoundland dog, but as the coxswain who attended it, was killed and went down with the boat, the animal would not leave the spot, but was picked up some time afterwards. After a desperate combat, during which a great many men were killed or wounded, one of the junks blew up, and it was soon observed that the rest were endeavouring to move off towards Chow-chan. The gun-boats finding the range of the junks, which were fast getting aground through the falling of the tide, now kept up a deadly fire with their heavy bow guns; and, after a desperate resistance, the Chow-chan fleet, commanded by one of the most able scholars of the country, was reduced to a mere wreck. Some junks escaped and reached Canton, where Yeh immediately imprisoned their officers for not having thrashed the "red-headed barbarians," but the greater part of the fleet, burnt down to their magazines, then blew up and scattered their timbers all over the creek. The ship's boats approached the burning vessels, and even passed them, in spite of the war rockets piled inside the junks, which would ignite, and tearing through the sides, go flying over the boats, in some cases dropping into them and killing the sailors. As the Chinese admiral expected a pretty severe engagement, he had ordered that men who had never before been in action were to be chained to their guns, and this command was pretty generally adopted by the captains. When the junks exploded the poor wretches were elevated in batches; and their yells, when they caught fire, were plainly heard by the sailors, who, however, did not seem to be much affected thereby. Not contented with merely destroying the Chinese fleet, the fire-eating captain who had lost his gig, upon falling in with a few of his own boats, actually pursued some flying junks as far as Chow-chan city, and, mounting a boat's gun upon the wall, coolly declared he took possession of that place. After having terrified a number of the Chow-channers nearly out of their senses and causing the Taontai to almost die with fright, he recalled his men, and returned to the flotilla, which by that time had mustered preparatory to returning. As they passed down the creek they picked up the dead bodies of those who had been killed and thrown overboard during the action, and having conveyed them alongside H. M. S. Blow-fly, the crew of that ship, after dark, buried them in the mud of the river.