The “Penguin” was destroyed, and the “Hornet” and “Peacock” continued their cruise until April 27, when they chased for twenty-four hours a strange sail, which proved to be the British seventy-four “Cornwallis.” On discovering the character of the chase Biddle made off to windward, but found that the enemy “sailed remarkably fast and was very weatherly.” At daylight of the 29th, the “Cornwallis” was within gunshot on the “Hornet’s” lee-quarter. Her shot did not take effect, and Biddle, by lightening his ship, drew out of fire; but a few hours later the enemy again came up within three quarters of a mile, in a calm sea, and opened once more. Three shot struck the “Hornet,” but without crippling her. Biddle threw over everything that could be spared, except one long gun; and a fortunate change of wind enabled him a second time to creep out of fire. He escaped; but the loss of his guns, anchors, cables, and boats obliged him to make for San Salvador, where he heard the news of peace.[95] Captain Warrington in the “Peacock” continued his cruise to the Indian Ocean, and captured four Indiamen. In the Straits of Sunda, June 30, he encountered a small East India Company’s cruiser, whose commander hailed and announced peace. Warrington replied, “directing him at the same time to haul his colors down if it were the case, in token of it,--adding that if he did not, I should fire into him.” The brig refused to strike its colors, and Warrington nearly destroyed her by a broadside.[96] For this violence little excuse could be offered, for the “Nautilus” was not half the “Peacock’s” strength, and could not have escaped. Warrington, like most officers of the American navy, remembered the “Chesapeake” too well. The cruise of the “President,” “Peacock,” and “Hornet” ended in the loss of the “President,” the disabling of the “Hornet,” and the arrival of the “Peacock” alone at the point intended for their common cruising-ground. No other national vessels were at sea after peace was signed, except the “Constitution,” which late in December sailed from Boston under the command of Captain Charles Stewart,--a Philadelphian of Irish descent, not thirty-nine years old, but since 1806 a captain in the United States service.