“You shall soon know,” answered Paul Jones, and on the instant the word was given simultaneously by both commanders to fire, and the two ships poured in their batteries with scarcely the delay of an instant betwixt the broadsides. I had no time to observe the effect of our discharge, for scarcely had the commodore spoken, when I heard a tremendous explosion in the direction of our gun-room; the deck above it was blown bodily up, and as the smoke swept away from the spot, I beheld two of the eighteens shattered and dismounted, and surrounded by a crowd of wretches, maimed and dying from the accident. I rushed to the place, and a more awful sight never before or since have I beheld. There lay our poor fellows, dismembered and bleeding, groaning in agony such as no pen can picture, and crying aloud, with their dying breath, for “water—water—water.” Here one, horribly mangled, hung over a gun that had burst—there another was stretched on the deck, with no marks on him except a black spot by the eye, from which the blood was trickling slowly. I shuddered and turned away. It would have been madness to have attempted to work the other eighteens, so the men were called away, and we began anew the action, with our chances one-third lessened by this horrible calamity. But the death of their messmates fired the rest of the crew with a thirst for revenge, which soon told in the murderous fire we poured in upon the enemy. For nearly an hour we kept up the conflict, working our lighter guns with the utmost vigor, and attempting to manœuvre so as to rake the enemy, but at every new endeavor we were foiled by the superior working qualities of our opponent. Meantime the moon had risen, and we could see that the Pallas had got alongside of the enemy’s consort, and was gallantly engaged yard-arm to yard-arm with her—the Alliance hovering out of range in the distance, and occasionally discharging a random broadside which did no execution. How our brave fellows cursed the cowardice of her captain! “Ay! there she is,” said one, “afraid to come within range even of a twenty gun ship, lest the lace of her coxcomb captain’s uniform might be ruffled. But never mind—we’ll win the battle without her—bowse away, my hearties, and give it to the Englisher with a will.”