At eleven the breeze began to freshen, and the seventy-four commenced to creep up slowly, and then gain all at once in a manner which caused Biddle to believe that the Englishman had made alterations in his trim. By noon the wind had shifted slightly, and was squally, with fresh breezes from the westward. It was Sunday, the 30th, but there was no service held. Gloom was everywhere throughout the American vessel: staring them in the face were apparently inevitable capture and the frightful confinement in an English prison. Many of the crew had already been impressed and had served in the English navy, escaping from time to time, and the idea of being held as deserters--deserters to a country that was not theirs--gave cause for much unhappiness. At 1 P.M. the _Cornwallis_ was so close that her commander began to fire by divisions, and once let go his entire broadside loaded with round and grape. But, as is recorded in the journal, “the former passed between our masts and the latter fell all around us. The enemy fired shells, but they were so ill directed as to be perfectly harmless.” And now began what looked to be a work of destruction, and which was intended as such, no doubt. Biddle determined that if he were taken there would be very little for the enemy to show as trophy. Overboard went all the muskets, cutlasses, and ironwork. The bell was broken up, and the topgallant forecastle was chopped to pieces. All this time only three-quarters of a mile on the lee quarter was the great ship of the line pouring in a constant storm of shot and shell. The Yankee tars trimmed ship by massing themselves against the rail, after the fashion of a yacht’s crew. At four o’clock a shot from the enemy struck the jib-boom, and another caught the starboard bulwark just forward of the gangway. A third smashed on the deck forward of the main-hatch, and, glancing up, passed through the foresail. It struck immediately over the head of a wounded Yankee sailor who had been hurt in the action with the _Penguin_; the splinters were scattered all around the invalid, and a small paper flag, the American ensign, that he had hoisted over his cot, was struck down. But immediately he lifted it up and waved it about his head. In fact, to quote again from the entry in the journal, “Destruction stared us in the face if we did not surrender, yet no officer, no man in the ship, showed any disposition to let the enemy have the poor little _Hornet_.”