The commander had given him leave to go on shore one day, and toward evening, as he was coming back to his boat, three cut-throats set upon him in a lonely place. Instead of trying to escape, MacDonough turned upon them and fought so fiercely that he soon wounded two of them, and the third took to his heels and ran. MacDonough ran after him. He chased the man for some distance, and then they came to a low building; into this building the man dashed, and up the stairs, with MacDonough still after him. When he reached the roof he looked behind him. There still was the terrible Americano. Then the man ran to the edge of the roof and jumped off, for he felt he would rather run the risk of breaking his neck than fight with MacDonough. When MacDonough came down stairs again, he looked all around for the man, but he could not see him, so he quietly returned to his boat and rowed back to the ship. In 1806, MacDonough was first lieutenant on the “Siren,” with Captain Smith in command. They were lying just off Gibraltar at one time, and at some distance from them were anchored two other vessels. One was an American merchant ship, and the other a British frigate. One day Captain Smith had gone on shore and MacDonough was in charge of the “Siren.” In the afternoon he saw a boat put off from the frigate and row over to the merchant ship. It lay there for a while, and then when it started to return to the frigate he saw that there was one more man in her than there had been before. MacDonough knew that the captains of English warships sometimes kidnapped American sailors, and made them serve on board the British vessels, and he suspected that this extra man was an American who was being stolen from the crew of the merchant ship. He immediately sent over to the ship to ask whether this were so. The captain told him “Yes;”—that the British had come on board, and taken one of his sailors. The captain had been afraid to resist them, for the frigate had guns and he had none. As soon as MacDonough heard this, he had a cutter lowered, and set out in chase of the British boat. The Englishmen were rowing in a very leisurely manner, for they never dreamed that any one would dare to interfere with their prize. MacDonough caught up to them just as they reached the frigate. The prisoner was sitting in the stem of the boat. MacDonough’s men drove the cutter so close that the two boats grated together. One of the Englishmen shouted to them to keep off, but instead MacDonough reached over, and catching hold of the prisoner dragged him, bodily, into his own boat. Then his rowers gave way, and before the Englishmen could recover from their surprise, he was on his way back to the “Siren,” the rescued man with him.