At last, having lost her fore and maintopmasts, her mizzenmast having been shot away to the deck, and her foreyard lying in two pieces on her shattered forecastle, having been hulled in a hundred places with round shot, the _Macedonian_ was reduced to the last extremity. Captain Garden ordered his signal quarter-master to strike the flag. Never did Sukey hear a command with greater joy. Never was a sailor so happy at being defeated. When the order was given to strike the flag, one of Captain Garden's officers, a man hated by the seamen for his tyranny, howled the most terrific remonstrances, and swore he would rather sink alongside than surrender. Had he been captain, probably he would have done so. Sukey and Tawney were among the boat's crew which rowed Captain Garden to the enemy. As, he touched the deck, Captain Garden saluted his captor, Captain Decatur, and offered him his sword; but it was courteously declined. The victor remembered the dinner parties he and Captain Garden had enjoyed in Norfolk, previous to the breaking out of hostilities, and while both were in command of the very frigates now crippled on the sea. The _Macedonian_ had gone into Norfolk with despatches; while Decatur was in that port. Then they had laughed and joked over their wine, and a wager of a beaver hat was said to have been made between them upon the event of the hostile meeting of their ships. This was their next meeting. Sukey and Tawney went home in the American frigate _United States_. With Sukey's return to his native country, the reader's interest in the naval operations perhaps ceases. Naval battles are the same, bloody and desperate, and the details of the fight with the _Macedonian_ are the details of all others. After briefly noticing the principal victories and defeats on sea, we shall take up again the characters in our story. On November 22d, the United States brig _Vixen_ was captured by the English frigate _Southampton,_ and both were subsequently shipwrecked on December 29th, the United States frigate _Constitution_, under Commodore Bainbridge, captured the British frigate _Java_, off the coast of Brazil. The American loss was 44 and the British 151. The American victories of the year of 1812 with such little loss produced much exultation in America and surprise and mortification in England. American seamen had been the greatest sufferers at the hands of the British, and they had long burned to avenge the insults of the English Navy. They fought for patriotism, glory and vengeance.