Captain Jones now headed his brig off to the coast of Nova Scotia, where he hove to, one day, to give his men a change in diet by catching codfish. While engaged in this very pleasant occupation the British frigate _Milford_ came down on him, and the _Providence_ again had to run. But Jones soon found that he could easily outsail the _Milford_, so to play with the enemy he shortened sail and allowed her to gain. Like a fat hound on the trail, she began to bark--to fire when a long way off, and with no more damage to the _Providence_ than a dog’s bark would have been. “He excited my contempt so much by his continual firing at more than twice the proper distance that when he rounded to to give a broadside, I ordered my marine officer to return the salute with only a single musket,” said Captain Jones in his report of the affair to the marine committee of the Congress. The next day Captain Jones sailed into Canso Harbor. It should be kept in mind at this point that the Congress had, on March 23, 1776, resolved “that the inhabitants of these colonies be permitted to fit out armed vessels to cruise on the enemies of these United Colonies”--the restriction that made prizes of the enemy’s men-of-war and transports only was entirely removed. The Congress had been driven to this step, of course, by the many outrages committed on the colonial coast by the British cruisers. Acting under this authority, and remembering these outrages, Captain Jones found in Canso three English schooners. He burned one, sunk another, and loaded a third with the cargoes of the other two. Next day he took small boats well armed and his flagship, and went after nine dismantled British vessels--ships, brigs, and schooners--lying at Madame Island, on the east side of the Bay of Canso. Finding the crews of these vessels on shore, Captain Jones promised to leave them enough of their fleet to take them home if they would help him fit the rest for sea. They agreed to this, and on September 26, 1776, Captain Jones got away with three large and deeply laden prizes. The ship _Adventure_ he burned in the harbor. After a cruise of forty-seven days, all told, he was again in Newport Harbor, having meantime captured sixteen prizes, besides destroying “many small vessels” and giving the people of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton a taste of the fear that had been felt on the Yankee coast. But he did not destroy the homes of those people as the homes of Portland, Maine, had been destroyed.