The yellow sides and royal yards rigged aloft told the "cocky" _Phoenix_ that the big ship to leeward was a Frenchman, and, with all sails spread, she bore down in the chase. Baker was eager to engage his enemy to leeward, that she might not escape, and he held his fire till he could reach the desired position. The _Didon_, however, a quick and weatherly ship, was able to keep ahead of the _Phoenix_, and thrice poured in a heavy broadside upon the grimly silent British ship without receiving a shot in reply. Baker's men were falling fast at their quarters, and, impatient at being both foiled and raked, he at last ran fiercely at his enemy to windward. The heads of both ships swung parallel, and at pistol-distance broadside furiously answered broadside. In order to come up with her opponent, however, the _Phoenix_ had all sail spread, and she gradually forged ahead. As soon as the two ships were clear, the _Didon_, by a fine stroke of seamanship, hauled up, crossed the stern of the _Phoenix_, and raked her, and then repeated the pleasant operation. The rigging of the _Phoenix_ was so shattered that for a few minutes she was out of hand. Baker, however, was a fine seaman, and his crew were in a high state of discipline; and when the _Didon_ once more bore up to rake her antagonist, the British ship, with her sails thrown aback, evaded the Frenchman's fire. But the stern of the _Didon_ smote with a crash on the starboard quarter of the Phoenix; the ships were lying parallel; the broadside of neither could be brought to bear. The Frenchmen, immensely superior in numbers, made an impetuous rush across their forecastle, and leaped on the quarter-deck of the Phoenix. The marines of that ship, however, drawn up in a steady line across the deck, resisted the whole rush of the French boarders; and the British sailors, tumbling up from their guns, cutlass and boarding-pike in hand, and wroth with the audacity of the "French lubbers" daring to board the "cocky little _Phoenix_," with one rush, pushed fiercely home, swept the Frenchmen back on to their own vessel.