The long gun was cast loose, the foot of the foresail lifted, and the gunner applying the match, the ball went whizzing on its way; while at the same moment our flag was run up to the gaff, and blowing out to leeward, disclosed the arms of our colony.[1] For a few minutes the shot might have been seen ricocheting along the waves, until it plunged into the sea a few fathoms on the larboard of the stranger. Still, however, no ensign was shown by the chase. “Pitch a shot into her this time, Mr. Matchlock,” ejaculated the skipper, addressing the gunner, “and see if that will bring her out.” “Ay, ay, sir,” said the old fellow, squinting along his piece, and aware that he was one of the best marksmen afloat in any service, “ay, ay, we’ll awake them to a sense of their condition presently; we’ll drive the cold iron through and through the reprobates: too high, a little more starboard—steadily all, and mark the mischief,” cried the old fellow, applying the match. The rest of the sentence was lost in the deafening report of the cannon; a sheet of fire was seen streaming out an instant from the mouth of the piece; and as the pale white smoke sailed slowly eddying away to leeward, the old gunner might have been discerned, bending eagerly forward, and shading his eyes with his hands, as he gazed after the path of the ball. “By the Lord Harry how it makes the splinters fly!” said the old fellow, as the shot, striking full on the quarter of the chase, went through and through her deck. “And there goes her flag at last,” said Westbrook, as the ensign of England floated from the quarter of the merchantman, while at the same moment a cloud of smoke puffed from his stern, and a shot, skimming along the deep, toward us, plunged into the waters a cable’s length ahead. “We’re beginning to make him talk, eh!” chuckled the gunner, waxing warm in his work. “Let him have it again now—ah! that will bring out his teeth—give it to ’em, you old sea-dog,” he continued, familiarly patting his piece, “and by the continental Congress, he’s got it among his sky-scrapers. There come his to’-gallant sails—hurrah!” The fight now became one of intense interest, for the merchantman perceiving that escape was impossible, seemed determined to resist to the last, and kept up a brisk and well-directed fire upon us from his stern-guns. Their range not being, however, so great as that of our piece, we were enabled after a while to regulate our distance so as to cripple the chase effectually without sustaining any damage ourselves. But it was not long that we were suffered to maintain the combat on our own terms. Worried beyond endurance by the havoc made among his spars, the chase soon put his helm up, wore round, and hauling up his courses in gallant defiance, came down boldly toward us. “We shall have it now,” whispered Westbrook as he stood by the division where he commanded, “they must outnumber us two to one—but we’ll give them a lesson for all that.”