However, in a fight so close to port, there was always the chance that the sound of cannon might attract some friendly cruiser; and Captain Furze answered the summoning gun with a broadside. The American immediately ran down and closed. A desperate fight followed. After the cannonade had lasted some considerable time, the American captain seized a favourable opportunity, and hurled his boarders into the Packet. They were bravely met with pike and musket, and in the end repulsed with loss. A second time the stormers came swarming up the “Lapwing’s” nettings, and again they were driven back. But by this second success the small numbers of the Post-Office men were sensibly diminished, while the musketry fire from the enemy’s tops made itself severely felt. Four of Captain Furze’s men lay dead, eight more were in the hands of the surgeon, and others were falling fast. Mr. Henry Senior, an ensign in the 60th Regiment, who was on board as a passenger, was shot through the thigh. A musket ball broke Captain Furze’s arm, and he had barely gone below to have his hurt tended, when Mr. Hodge, the master, who had been left in command on deck, was brought down, shot through both thighs. The resistance had lasted three hours. Half the crew of the Packet were disabled, and, near as the coast of Barbados was, there appeared no sign of succour. Captain Furze reluctantly concluded that it was hopeless to prolong the struggle, and he ordered the mails to be sunk, and the colours to be struck. Unfortunate as the result of this action was, Captain Furze received considerable credit for the gallant resistance he had made, and there can be no doubt that this credit was fully earned. Very early in the new year the Falmouth Service sustained a heavy loss by the capture of the “Townshend,” which had been so nobly defended by Captain Cock hardly more than a year before. She was on her way to Lisbon, when she fell in with the French frigate “La Clorinde,” an ancient enemy of the Packets, which had certainly captured one at least before, and had not improbably been detached to cruise in their track, in the hope of intercepting despatches. That this was her object on the present occasion admitted of little doubt, for when “La Clorinde” overhauled the “Townshend,” she concealed her nationality, though no resistance was offered, ran up Portuguese colours, and sent off a boat.