When off the capes of the Delaware this worse than half-manned _Trumbull_, in a gale lost her fore topmast and main topgallantmast--a misfortune unquestionably due to the misconduct of her English crew. She was then not only worse than half-manned, but she was worse than half-found in sails. While in this condition (and it should be remembered that the _Trumbull_ carried but twenty-eight guns) the British frigate _Iris_ (formerly the American frigate _Hancock_), of thirty-two guns, ranged up on one side of her, and another British ship, name unknown, on the other. Instead of surrendering, as he would have been justified in doing, Captain Nicholson cleared the ship for action, and the battle began. And then at the first broadside the Englishmen to a man, by preconcerted action, fled to the hold and succeeded in frightening the landsmen into following them, so that but fifty men were left to fight the enemy. [Illustration: _After a miniature in the possession of Miss Josephine L. Stevens._] But among those fifty were Richard Dale from the deck of the _Bonhomme Richard_, and one Christopher Raymond Perry, who will be heard of later, and the summons to surrender was scorned. Never before had such a fight as this occurred--a fight wherein fifty men in a crippled ship of twenty-eight guns struck back at a thirty-two-gun ship carrying seven times as many men and helped by another ship that was itself undoubtedly more than a match for a cripple. And yet for an hour James Nicholson, Richard Dale, and Christopher Raymond Perry kept their men at the guns. Sixteen men were killed and wounded out of the valiant fifty. Even then the flag was still flying. There is no telling how long the desperate conflict would have continued; but a third British ship, the _General Monk_, came into the fight and in a position to rake the American at short range. It was a case then of surrender or sink, and the flag of the _Trumbull_ was hauled down. In March of 1781 the _Alliance_, under Capt. John Barry, was found in a most exasperating position off the British coast. She had sailed from Boston in February, and after taking a privateer called the _Alert_, reached L’Orient safely. There she was joined by a French privateer of forty guns, called the _Marquis de la Fayette_. Sailing on March 31st, they captured the British privateers _Mars_, of twenty-six guns, and the _Minerva_, of ten, the two carrying crews aggregating 167 men. Then the _Alliance_ went on alone, and on May 28th fell in with two smaller vessels that boldly attacked her.