“Finding the privateer was warping under the fort very fast, Captain Bentham judged it prudent to lose no time, and about twelve o’clock ordered the boats to make the attack. A more gallant, determined one never was made, led on by Lieutenants Matterface of the ‘Rota’ and Bowerbank of this ship; and every officer and man displayed the greatest courage in the face of a heavy discharge of great guns and musketry. But from her side being on the rocks (which was not known at the time), and every American in Fayal, exclusive of part of the crew, being armed and concealed in these rocks, which were immediately over the privateer, it unfortunately happened when these brave men gained the deck they were under the painful necessity of returning to their boats, from the very destructive fire kept up by those above them from the shore, who were in complete security,--and I am grieved to add, not before many lives were lost exclusive of the wounded.” As far as the accounts[308] agree, the boats were twelve in number, with about two hundred men. The privateersmen numbered ninety. As the boats approached, the guns opened on them; and when they came alongside the privateer they found the boarding-nettings up, with a desperate crew behind. So vigorously did the British seamen attack, that they gained the forecastle for a time. All three American lieutenants were killed or disabled, and Captain Reid fought his brig alone; but the deck was at last cleared, and the surviving assailants dropped into their boats or into the water. Proverbially, an unsuccessful boat-attack was the most fatal of all services. The British loss was excessive. According to their report at the time, “Lieutenants Bowerbank, Coswell, and Rogers of the ‘Rota’ were killed, as well as thirty-eight seamen, and eighty-three wounded; the first, fourth, and fifth lieutenants of the ‘Plantagenet’ were wounded, and twenty-two seamen killed, and twenty-four wounded.[309]” According to the official report, thirty-four were killed and eighty-six were wounded. The “Guerriere” in her battle with the “Constitution” lost only seventy-eight men altogether. The “Macedonian” lost only one hundred and four. The attack on the “General Armstrong” was one of the bloodiest defeats suffered by the British navy in the war. Not only was the privateer untaken, but she lost few of her crew,--nine in all, killed and wounded. Captain Lloyd then declared that he would destroy the privateer if he had to destroy Fayal in doing it, and ordered Captain Bentham of the “Carnation” to attack her with his guns. Reid abandoned and scuttled the “General Armstrong,” taking his men on shore. The “Carnation’s” shot inflicted some injury on the town, before the privateer was set on fire by the “Carnation’s” boats.[310]