The two uninjured schooners bore up on the Defence and engaged her; the American brig here entered the fight, with the brass carronades with which she was armed. She took the attention of one of the schooners from the Defence, and Captain Deering headed for the other with his bow guns barking like vicious dogs and the powder-smoke almost covering his vessel’s advance. The steering-gear of the privateer had been damaged by a well-placed shot from the long gun early in the action; so she could not manœuvre as she otherwise would have done; the result was that the Defence laid herself alongside, and with a wild cheer the seamen and swamp-riders, led by Tom and the mate, sprang over the rail and rushed among her crew. These latter, apparently, were not accustomed to this style of fighting, for after a weak resistance they threw down their arms and cried for quarter. Captain Deering directed that they should be driven down below and the hatches battened down; then placing a half dozen men on board the captured craft to manage her, he drew off. The American brig was still engaged with the third schooner; the latter was the lightest armed and manned, and as the brig seemed fully capable of providing her with entertainment the Defence went about and bore up for the Revenge. Captain Murray was fighting his vessel with desperate resolution; but, by this time, his ammunition began to grow low, for they had been hotly engaged for a full hour, and his fire had somewhat slackened. And now the gallant officer’s heart leaped with delight as he saw the Defence heading for the brig, upon his starboard; for with the attention of this vessel attracted from him for a space he felt that he could deal with the ship. Tom Deering, who had sailed upon many coasting trips in the Defence before the outbreak of the war, was at the helm; Captain Deering was superintending the loading of his guns with canister and musket balls; Mr. Johnson was mustering a boarding crew in the waist. As they neared the brig, which greeted them with a scattering fire of small arms and a broadside which did little or no damage, the captain shouted to Tom, “Down your helm--hard!” The signal had been arranged between them; the brig manœuvred to meet the expected movement of the schooner; but Tom promptly threw his helm up, and a swinging spar became entangled in the rigging of the Defence, whose mate at once, with a body of seamen, sprang to make the tangle secure. The schooner was now in a position from which she could rake the brig from stem to stern. “Fire,” cried Uncle Dick. The guns, loaded with the canister and musket balls, swept the British ship’s decks, and in a few moments there was not a man to be seen. Those who had not fallen by the fire had sought safety below decks; Mr. Johnson was about to give the word to board, when the lashings gave way, and the two vessels drifted apart.