It had been very calm on the morning of the 28th when the great ship had been sighted which, as Biddle has recorded, every one took to be a large East-Indiaman. As the _Peacock_ was in advance and to the windward of the stranger, it was feared by the crew of the _Hornet_ that she would be first to place herself alongside and secure the rich prize. According to the private journal of one of the officers on the _Hornet_, they had already begun in their imagination to divide the contents of the vessel they expected to capture among them. If she came from the Indies, the sailors declared that they would carpet the berth-deck with costly rugs; while if she hailed from England and was on an outward voyage, the officers revelled in the idea of what her larder might contain; the probable value of her cargo was estimated carefully. The _Hornet_ was crowding on all sail in order to draw up before the _Peacock_ should have had the best of the picking. Captain Biddle was on deck with his glass in hand watching the _Peacock_, when suddenly he saw her swing about (she was well to windward), and fly a signal telling that the big vessel was a ship of the line. The _Peacock_ was a faster sailer than the _Hornet_, as the latter sat deep in the water, and, owing to the weight of metal she carried, was slow in stays. But it was evident, by six o’clock in the evening, three hours after Warrington had signalled Biddle to beware of approaching nearer, that the big fellow had turned the tables and was evidently the pursuer, with the intention of running down the _Hornet_. Every minute the sails rose higher and higher above the horizon until the great hull was in plain view. She weathered the little _Hornet_, and it was seen that at the rate of progress the two were making the seventy-four would be within gunshot sometime during the night. Immediately the wedges of the lower masts were loosened, and at nine o’clock orders were given to lighten ship as much as possible. The sheet-anchor was cut away and hove overboard, and all of the cable followed it. Then the spare rigging and spars were put over the side, and before ten o’clock they scuttled the wardroom-deck and hove overboard about fifty tons of the kentledge. It was a bright night, with all the stars shining, and there was no use disguising the matter: the _Hornet_ was continually dropping back. The seventy-four fired a gun and signalled, but Biddle did not respond. Like Hull, who brought the _Constitution_ successfully away from a superior force, by pluck and attention to duty, knowledge and seamanship, he determined to leave nothing untried that would tend to increase the rate of his vessel’s sailing.