If the British navy cared to pay such a price for the shell of an old privateer brig, which had already cost British commerce, as Captain Lloyd believed, a million dollars,[311] the privateers were willing to gratify the wish, as was shown a few days afterward when the “Endymion” tried to carry the “Prince of Neufchatel” by boarding. This privateer had made itself peculiarly obnoxious to the British navy by the boldness of its ravages in British waters. It was coming to America filled with plunder, and with a prize in company, when off Gay Head the “Endymion” was sighted, October 11, and gave chase. Captain Hope of the “Endymion” made an official report, explaining with much detail that he chased the privateer till evening, when the wind failed, and he then sent out his boats:[312]-- “I sent all the boats under command of Lieutenants Hawkins, Ormond, and Fanshaw. In approaching the ship an alarm was fired. The boats had been previously rowing up under a shoal, and had not felt the effects of a rapid tide which they almost instantaneously became exposed to. The second barge in taking the station assigned by Lieutenant Hawkins on the schooner’s starboard bow, having her larboard oars shot away, unfortunately was swept by the stream athwart the first barge; thereby all the boats became entangled; and it is with extreme concern I acquaint you that the attack was in consequence at this moment only partially made. Notwithstanding this disadvantage at the first onset, every exertion that human skill could devise was resorted to to renew the contest; and they succeeded in again getting alongside, but not in the position intended. Their failure, therefore, is to be ascribed in the first instance to the velocity of the tide, the height of the vessel’s side, not having channel plates to assist the men in getting on her deck, and her very superior force (a schooner of the largest dimensions, the ‘Prince of Neufchatel,’ three hundred and twenty tons, eighteen guns, long-nine and twelve-pounders, with a complement of one hundred and forty men of all nations, commanded by Mons. Jean Ordronaux). The boats’ painters being now shot away, they again fell astern without ever being able to repeat the attack, and with great difficulty regained the ship, with the exception of the second barge.”