At noon the schooner was closing fast on the Packet, and at 12.30 P.M. she fired three guns. Captain Blewitt, thinking that the enemy would shortly close, ordered the gunners to reserve their fire until it could be delivered with more effect; but the Privateer had no intention of coming to meet the broadside at short range, and Captain Blewitt, seeing that she hung back, bore up, gave her his stern guns, and then, hauling across the schooner’s bows, raked her with his starboard guns, and wore again with the intention of closing, pouring in the fire of his larboard guns as they came to bear. Thus, while the “Duke of Montrose” had received only a single broadside, every gun that she carried had been fired into the Privateer at short range, and the execution must have been deadly. At 1.45 P.M. the schooner ran down and endeavoured to grapple the Packet, but the fire of the Cornish gunners was too well-directed, and she sheered off again to a safer distance. Half-an-hour later she ceased firing and tacked to the eastward, whereupon Captain Blewitt tacked to the westward and resumed his voyage in the best of spirits. Unhappily his elation was short-lived, for on the following morning Commodore Rogers in the United States frigate “President” passed that way. Resistance against such a force as the “President” possessed was out of the question. The mails were sunk, and the “Duke of Montrose” surrendered. Commodore Rogers treated his prisoners with very honourable forbearance and liberality. He would not permit them to be plundered of the least trifle, and informed Captain Blewitt that he proposed to send him, with all his crew and passengers, back to England in their own ship, on condition that they would enter into a contract to send the Packet back to America with an equal number of American prisoners in England. This agreement, drawn up in the most binding terms, was subscribed “upon our sacred honour” by all the persons concerned; and the “Duke of Montrose,” having on board a single American officer, arrived at Falmouth towards the end of June. It then appeared that in the view of the British Government the agreement was contrary to law; and as it had been notified to the American Government that exchanges of prisoners on the high seas would not be recognized as valid, the whole transaction was declared void; the “Duke of Montrose” was restored to the Post-Office, the officers and crew were told that they might resume their duties without being exchanged, and the American officer was sent back to his own country empty-handed. The story is not a pleasant one; and while the action of the Government may have been strictly warranted by the notification made to the United States, yet the transaction smacks overmuch of the methods of a sharp attorney, and one cannot but regret that the generous confidence of Commodore Rogers was not met in the same spirit.