Blakeley ran directly across the ocean into soundings at the mouth of the British Channel. There he remained during the month of June, searching every vessel that passed. The number of neutrals constantly diverting his attention kept him actively employed, and led him farther into the Channel than was intended; but although three British frigates and fourteen sloops were at sea for the protection of British waters, the “Wasp” continued to burn and sink such British merchantmen as she met,--the first, June 2, and subsequently June 13, 18, 23, and 26,--until on the morning of June 28 a man-of-war brig appeared to windward, and bore down on the American ship. The day was warm and overcast. During the whole morning the two vessels approached each other so slowly that each had more than time to study his opponent. Once more the foresight of the American ship-builders secured a decisive advantage. The British brig, the “Reindeer,” was altogether unequal to the contest. In tonnage she resembled the “Epervier,” and her armament was even lighter. Captain Manners, her commander, had substituted twenty-four-pound carronades for the usual thirty-two-pounders, and his broadside of ten guns threw only two hundred and ten pounds of metal,[295] while the “Wasp’s” eleven guns threw three hundred and thirty-eight pounds. The American crew numbered one hundred and seventy-three men; the British numbered one hundred and eighteen. Contest under such conditions was a forlorn hope, but the “Reindeer’s” crew were the pride of Portsmouth, and Manners was the idol of his men. They might cripple the “Wasp” if they could not capture her; and probably the fate of the “Argus,” a year before, encouraged the hope that the “Reindeer” could do at least as well as the “Pelican.”