The battle in the dark which followed has been always deeply interesting to students of naval history, the more because the British Admiralty suppressed the official reports, and left an air of mystery over the defeat which rather magnified than diminished its proportions. The British brig was the sloop-of-war “Avon,” commanded by Captain James Arbuthnot, and carrying the usual armament of sixteen thirty-two-pound carronades with two long six-pounders. Her crew was reported as numbering one hundred and four men and thirteen boys. Captain Arbuthnot’s official report[296] said that the “Avon” had been cruising in company with the sloop-of-war “Castilian,” when at daylight, September 1, he “discovered an enemy’s schooner in the rear of the Kangaroo convoy,” and gave chase. The “Castilian” also gave chase, and at seven o’clock the twenty-gun ship “Tartarus” was signalled, also in chase.[297] All day the three British sloops-of-war chased the privateer schooner, until at half-past six o’clock in the evening the “Castilian’s” superiority in sailing free left the “Avon” out of sight, nine miles astern. The position of the “Tartarus” was not mentioned in the reports, but she could hardly have been ahead of the “Castilian.” The three British sloops were then within ten miles of each other, under full sail, with a ten-knot wind. The weather was hazy, and neither the “Castilian” nor the “Tartarus” could see that the “Avon” was signalling the “Castilian” a recall. The “Avon” saw at four o’clock a large sail on her weather-beam standing directly for her, and knowing that the “Wasp” was cruising in these waters, Captain Arbuthnot felt natural anxiety to rejoin his consort. Captain Arbuthnot’s report continued:-- “The stranger closing with us fast, I kept away and set the weather studding-sails in hopes of nearing the ‘Castilian’ or ‘Tartarus,’ the latter of which I had only lost sight of at 3 P. M. At 7.30 P. M. the stranger had approached within hail, and being unable to get a satisfactory answer I had not a doubt of her being an enemy’s corvette. At 8.30 he fired a shot over us which was instantly returned with a broadside. He then bore up and endeavored to rake us, but was prevented. The action then became general within half pistol-shot, and continued without intermission until 10.30 P. M., when--having seven feet of water in the hold, the magazine drowned; tiller, foreyard, main-boom, and every shroud shot away, and the other standing and the running rigging cut to pieces; the brig quite unmanageable, and the leak gaining fast on the pumps; with forty killed and wounded, and five of the starboard guns dismounted; and conceiving further resistance only would cause a useless sacrifice of lives--I was under the painful necessity of ordering the colors to be struck to the American corvette ‘Wasp,’ the mainmast, almost immediately after, going over the side.”