The British sent a frigate and a sloop-of-war down the river to recapture the schooner, and so, finding he could not get her away to sea, Barry was obliged to destroy the vessel, which he did by pointing his guns down her hatch and shooting holes through her bottom. But he had in the meantime for two months patrolled the lower Delaware and cut off the British supplies to such an extent that there was actual suffering in the British camp. He gave them a taste, at least, of what Washington’s brave hosts were suffering that winter at Valley Forge. He returned to White Hill by travelling through the forest that then surrounded Philadelphia. Having by this effort once more commanded the attention of the authorities, he was sent to the _Raleigh_ at Boston, and on September 25, 1778, sailed away with two merchant ships in convoy. Three days later he was a wanderer in the unbroken forests of Maine. The little fleet got to sea early in the morning. At noon two sails were seen in the south, and Captain Barry, after signalling the convoy to steer close-hauled, ran down for a look at the strangers. Because the wind was light it took him the whole of the afternoon to learn their character, but at sundown he found they were two English frigates. At this Captain Barry ordered the merchantmen back to port, cleared his ship for action, and thereafter for forty-eight hours engaged in a game of hide-and-seek with the enemy wherein he had, now and again, the darkness of night, the horizon, and sundry fog-banks to conceal him. [Illustration: An English Frigate of Forty Guns. _From an engraving by Verico._] On sending the merchantmen toward port Barry took that course himself, until the darkness wholly enveloped the enemy, when he again resumed his course. At dawn next day he found himself in a fog, and during the forenoon nothing could be seen, but at noon the fog disappeared, and then the enemy were again seen to the south on a course parallel to Barry’s. Seeing this, Barry came up close-hauled and crowded on all sail, while the enemy came on in like dress until 3 or 4 o’clock, when another fog shut them from view. Then Barry headed away eastwardly with a free wind, and ran so until daylight on the 27th, when he furled the canvas and let her drift under bare poles until 6 o’clock, while he searched the horizon for the frigates. Having seen nothing, Captain Barry made sail, and held a course to the southeast until 9.30, when he again saw the enemy. At this he came up to the wind, tacked about, and heading away to the northwest with “a staggering breeze,” the _Raleigh_ made “11 knots and 2 fathoms on a dragged bowline,” per hour. That was a pace that the Englishmen could not hold, and the _Raleigh_ soon dropped them behind the horizon, but at noon the _Raleigh_ ran out of the streak of wind, as a sailor might say, while the enemy were still holding it.