The first few days of the cruise were uneventful. On the 14th of April, 1778, between the Scilly Isles and Cape Clear, the Ranger captured a brig bound for Ireland loaded with flaxseed. As the prize and her cargo were not worth sending in, the vessel was burned at sea. On the 17th, off St. George's Channel, they overhauled a large ship, the Lord Chatham, loaded with porter _en route_ from London to Dublin. The ship and cargo being of great value--one likes to think how the porter must have appealed to the seamen, who, it is quite likely, were permitted to regale themselves to a limited extent from the cargo--she was manned and sent back to Brest as a prize. After this capture Jones proceeded up the Irish Channel, heading to the northeast, and on the 18th, finding himself off the northern extremity of the Isle of Man, and in line with Whitehaven, he attempted to carry out a preconceived project of destroying the shipping in the port; being determined, as he says, by one great burning of ships to put an end to the burnings and ravagings and maraudings of the British upon the undefended coasts of North America. The wind was blowing from the east, and he beat up against it toward the town, where he hoped to find a large number of ships in the harbor. The adverse wind delayed him, however, and it was not until ten o'clock at night that the Ranger reached a point from which it was practicable to dispatch the boats. Preparations were hastily made, and the boats were called away and manned by volunteers. The boats were already in the water when the wind suddenly shifted and blew hard on shore, so that the Ranger was forced to beat out to sea promptly to avoid taking ground on the shoals under her lee. The expedition, therefore, for that time, was abandoned, the boats were swung up to the davits, and the Ranger filled away again. The next morning, off the Mull of Galloway, they captured a schooner loaded with barley and sunk her. Learning from some prisoners that ten or twelve large ships, under the protection of a small tender, were anchored in Lochvyau, Scotland, Jones ran for that harbor, intending to destroy them, but the variable weather, as before, interfered with his plans, and a sudden squall drove the Ranger into the open once more and saved the ships. He captured and sunk a small Irish fishing sloop, making prisoners of the fishermen, that same afternoon. The sloop was of no value to Jones, and he would have let her go had it not been that he feared the alarm would be given. He treated the fishermen kindly, however, and, as we shall see, in the end they suffered no loss from his action.