All this was done in such a short period of time as scarcely to cause the Poughkeepsie to lose any thing, while it did the Swash the most serious injury. The guns had been directed at the brig’s spars and sails, Capt. Mull desiring no more than to capture his chase, and the destruction they produced aloft was such as to induce Spike and his men, at first, to imagine that the whole hamper above their heads was about to come clattering down on deck. One shot carried away all the weather fore-topmast rigging of the brig, and would no doubt have brought about the loss of the mast, if another, that almost instantly succeeded it had not cut the spar itself in two, bringing down, as a matter of course, every thing above it. Nearly half of the main-mast was gouged out of that spar, and the gaff was taken fairly out of its jaws. The fore-yard was cut in the slings, and various important ropes, were carried away in different parts of the vessel. Flight under such circumstances, was impossible, unless some extraordinary external assistance was to be obtained. This Spike saw at once, and he had recourse to the only expedient that remained; which might possibly yet save him. The guns were still belching forth their smoke and flames, when he shouted out the order to put the helm hard up. The width of the passage in which the vessels were was not so great but that he might hope to pass across it and to enter a channel among the rocks, which was favorably placed for such a purpose, ere the sloop-of-war could overtake him. Whither that channel led, what water it possessed, or whether it were not a shallow _cul de sac_, were all facts of which Spike was ignorant. The circumstances, however, would not admit of an alternative.