Because of the mails on board this packet Captain Connyngham decided to carry his prize into port at once. It will be remembered that the capture of this mail packet happened but a few weeks after the capture of the Lisbon packet. So, as may be supposed, the arrival of the _Surprise_, with the _Prince of Orange_ as a prize, created a tremendous excitement among the English. The British ambassador at Paris demanded that Connyngham and his crew be surrendered for trial as pirates, and threatened to leave the country if the demand was not complied with. As the French government was not yet ready for war, and the firm attitude of the English compelled seeming compliance with the demand, Connyngham was arrested and his commission taken away from him. The British ambassador sent for two sloops-of-war to come over and convoy the _Surprise_ and the _Prince of Orange_ across to England. For a time it looked as if the audacious Americans would really be hanged as pirates by the infuriated Englishmen. But in those days much time was required for completing matters of diplomacy, and the American commissioners, with their agents, were working day and night not only to save Captain Connyngham, but to send him once more on a cruise against the enemy. Another swift cutter was procured and secretly armed with fourteen six-pounders and twenty swivels, while a crew of 106 men was shipped. The new man-of-war was very properly named the _Revenge_, and before the sloops-of-war had arrived from England Captain Connyngham had, “with some address and intrigue,” been released from prison and supplied with a new commission and sent away to sea. It was on July 18, 1777, that the _Revenge_ left port, and she was the fifth ship of the American navy to cruise in England’s home waters. If the _Surprise_ had astonished the British seafaring folks, the _Revenge_ astounded them. And it must not be forgotten that the little fleet of three vessels under Captain Wickes had already gone to sea on the same errand.