The _Constitution_ went into Boston, but Hull, fearing orders for detachment, which in fact were on the way from Washington, hurried to sea again on August 2d. On the 19th, at a point some 400 miles southeast of Halifax, he met the British frigate, _Guerrière_, Captain Dacres. The latter on the _Constitution’s_ near approach lay-to with her maintopsail to the mast, showing her willingness to engage. The battle began a little after 6:00 P.M., and before seven the _Guerrière_ was dismasted and in a sinking condition. Her crew was taken off; she was set afire, and in a quarter of an hour blew up. The _Constitution_ was practically uninjured and in a few hours could have gone into action again. She was, it is true, the heavier ship, with thirty 24-pounders against the _Guerrière’s_ thirty 18’s, and twenty-four 32-pounder carronades against the _Guerrière’s_ sixteen; and a total of 55 guns and 468 men against the _Guerrière’s_ 49 guns and 272 men, but the injury was entirely disproportionate. The _Guerrière_ had seventy-nine men killed and wounded. The _Constitution_ had seven killed and seven wounded. The _Guerrière_ lost every mast and her hull was so riddled that she could not be carried into port. So little was the _Constitution_ injured that in the same evening all damage was repaired and another ship, supposedly an enemy, which appeared at 2:00 A.M., sheered off. The ships were not markedly different in size, the _Constitution_ being 1,576 tons American measurement, the _Guerrière_ 1,338 British. But by the latter the _Constitution_ would have been but 1,426. The difference in size and force, however, was a small matter considering the fact that before the outbreak of the war it was confidently affirmed that British sloops-of-war would lie alongside American frigates with impunity.