About noon the strange schooner came within range, hoisted French colours, and opened fire. The Cornishmen replied by playing on the enemy with their stern chasers, those long brass guns which in so many other fights had proved serviceable in delaying the advance of an enemy. On this occasion, however, they appear to have done little execution, for the schooner drew on rapidly, and, coming within hail, ordered Mr. Rogers, in what he termed “very opprobrious language,” to strike his colours. On finding that he treated this demand as it deserved, the French opened a very heavy fire, both of cannon and musketry, which they maintained without intermission for more than an hour. The Privateer carried three guns in her broadside, as did the “Windsor Castle” also, but they were 9–pounders, whereas the Packet’s broadside guns were only 4–pounders, and her chasers 6–pounders. Moreover the Privateer had a long 18–pounder fixed on a swivel in the centre of the main-deck, and traversing on a circle, so that it could be brought to bear on any point with ease. The fire of this powerful gun could not fail to exercise a large effect on the action, and in fact great damage was done by it to the spars and rigging of the Packet. At last the French, believing the moment favourable, seized an opportunity of boarding, and grappled the “Windsor Castle” on the starboard quarter. A strong party leaped into the nettings of the Packet, slashing at them with swords, and hacking at the ridge-ropes with long poles armed with hooks of sharpened steel. But the nettings were lofty and well-secured, the Falmouth men understood the use of pikes and cutlasses, and in a few minutes several of the boarders were wounded and thrust into the sea, while the remainder leaped back to their own ship. On the failure of this attack, the French cut the grapplings, and would have sheered off, probably to resume their cannonade, but the mainyard of the Packet had locked itself in the rigging of the Privateer, and the wind having almost completely died away, the two vessels could not possibly separate. “Thereupon,” says the account, written by a passenger on the “Windsor Castle,” “our pikemen again flew to their muskets, pistols and blunderbusses, our gallant captain all the while giving his orders with the most admirable coolness, and encouraging his crew by his speeches and example in such a way that there was no thought of yielding, although many of our heroes now lay stretched upon our deck in their blood. But then we saw the enemy’s decks completely covered with their dead and wounded, and the fire from our great guns doing dreadful execution.”