On that point the reports agreed. The action began at half-past five o’clock in the afternoon at close range. In seven minutes the “Chesapeake” forged ahead, came into the wind and ceased firing, as none of her guns could be made to bear. Seven minutes allowed time at the utmost for two discharges of some of her guns. No more guns were fired from the “Chesapeake” till she drifted close to the “Shannon.” Then her two sternmost guns, the thirteenth and fourteenth on the main deck, again bore on the enemy, and were depressed and fired by Lieutenant Cox while the boarders were fighting on the spar-deck.[413] Thus the number of discharges from the “Chesapeake’s” guns could be known within reasonable certainty. She carried in her broadside nine thirty-two-pounders and fourteen or fifteen eighteen-pounders, besides one twelve-pounder,--twenty-five guns. Assuming them to have been all discharged twice, although the forward guns could scarcely have been discharged more than once, the “Chesapeake” could have fired only fifty-two shot, including the two eighteen-pounders fired by Lieutenant Cox at the close. According to the official report nearly every shot must have taken effect. The “Shannon” was struck by thirteen thirty-two-pound shot; the “Chesapeake” fired only eighteen, if she discharged every gun twice. The “Shannon” was struck by twelve eighteen-pound shot, fourteen bar-shot, and one hundred and nineteen grape-shot; the “Chesapeake’s” fifteen eighteen-pounders could hardly have done more in the space of seven minutes. In truth, every shot that was fired probably took effect. The casualties showed equal efficiency of fire, and when compared with other battles were severe. When the “Guerriere” struck to the “Constitution” in the previous year, she had lost in half an hour of close action twenty-three killed or mortally wounded and fifty-six more or less injured. The “Shannon” seems to have lost in eleven minutes, before boarding, twenty-seven men killed or mortally wounded and nineteen more or less injured.[414] The relative efficiency of the “Shannon’s” gunnery was not so clear, because the “Shannon’s” battery continued to fire after the “Chesapeake” ceased. As the “Chesapeake” drifted down on the “Shannon” she was exposed to the broadside of the British frigate, while herself unable to fire a gun. “The shot from the ‘Shannon’s’ aftermost guns now had a fair range along the ‘Chesapeake’s’ decks,” said the British account,[415] “beating in the stern-ports and sweeping the men from their quarters. The shots from the foremost guns at the same time entering the ports from the mainmast aft did considerable execution.”