On that luckless July morning, at break of day, off the New Jersey coast, it seemed as though the _Constitution_ would be flying British colors ere she had a chance to fight. On her leeward side stood two English frigates, the _Guerriere_ and the _Belvidera_, with the _Shannon_ only five miles astern, and the rest of the hostile fleet lifting topsails above the southern horizon. Not a breath of wind stirred. Captain Hull called away his boats, and the sailors tugged at the oars, towing the _Constitution_ very slowly ahead. Captain Broke of the _Shannon_ promptly followed suit and signaled for all the boats of the squadron. In a long column they trailed at the end of the hawser; and the _Shannon_ crept closer. Catspaws of wind ruffled the water, and first one ship and then the other gained a few hundred yards as upper tiers of canvas caught the faint impulse. The _Shannon_ was a crack ship, and there was no better crew in the British navy, as Lawrence of the _Chesapeake_ afterwards learned to his mortal sorrow. Gradually the _Shannon_ cut down the intervening distance until she could make use of her bow guns. At this Captain Hull resolved to try kedging his ship along, sending a boat half a mile ahead with a light anchor and all the spare rope on board. The crew walked the capstan round and hauled the ship up to the anchor, which they then lifted, carried ahead, and dropped again. The _Constitution_ kept two kedges going all through that summer day, but the _Shannon_ was playing the same game, and the two ships maintained their relative positions. They shot at each other at such long range that no damage was done. Before dusk the _Guerriere_ caught a slant of breeze and worked nearer enough to bang away at the _Constitution_, which was, indeed, between the devil and the deep sea. Night came on. The sailors, British and American, toiled until they dropped in their tracks, pulling at the kedge anchors and hawsers or bending to the sweeps of the cutters which towed at intervals and were exposed to the spatter of shot. It seemed impossible that the _Constitution_ could slip clear of this pack of able frigates which trailed her like hounds. Toward midnight the fickle breeze awoke and wafted the ships along under studding sails and all the light cloths that were wont to arch skyward. For two hours the men slept on deck like logs while those on watch grunted at the pump-brakes and the hose wetted the canvas to make it draw better.