Until August 13th the _Essex_ had no adventure. On that day, while cruising along under reefed top-sails, a ship was seen to windward that appeared to be a man-of-war. At this, drags were put over the stern of the _Essex_ to hold her back, and then a few men were sent aloft to shake out the reefs, and the sails were then spread to the breeze exactly as a merchant-crew would have done it. The stranger was entirely deceived by this, and she came bowling down toward the _Essex_, which was now flying the British flag. The stranger having fired a gun, the _Essex_ hove to until she had passed under her stern to leeward. Having now the weather-gage, the _Essex_ suddenly filled away her main-sails, cut away the drags, hauled down the British flag, ran up the Stars and Stripes, and, throwing open her ports, ran out the muzzles of her guns. At the sight of these doings the Englishmen gave three cheers, and, without waiting to get where their guns would bear effectively, they blazed away with grape and canister. The _Essex_ waited for a minute or two until her guns would bear, and then gave the stranger a broadside, “tompions and all,” as Midshipman Farragut wrote at the time. The effect on the stranger was stunning. Her crew were actually stunned into inaction, and all of them but three officers were severely reprimanded at the court-martial of the captain, and several of the lower officers were dishonorably dismissed from the service on a charge of cowardice. They tried to veer off and run away, but “she was in the lion’s reach,” to again quote the youngster, and within eight minutes the _Essex_ was alongside, when the stranger fired a musket and then struck her flag. The American officer who boarded her found that she was the corvette _Alert_, Captain Thomas L. P. Laugharne, carrying eighteen short thirty-twos and two long twelves, a very inferior force to that of the _Essex_. And yet the result of this brief contest was of the greatest significance. The British histories say the fight lasted fifteen minutes. Doubtless this means from the time the _Alert’s_ crew cheered so vigorously until they hauled down their flag. Farragut says that it was eight minutes from the first broadside of the _Essex_ until the flag came down, and this is not disputed. In eight minutes the _Essex_ had shot the _Alert_ so full of holes that when the American boat’s crew reached the beaten ship the water was seven feet deep in her hold in spite of the utmost efforts of her crew to check the leaks! Not a man was killed on the _Alert_, and only three were wounded. The gunners of the _Essex_ aimed low--they shot to sink the enemy, and they wellnigh succeeded. No one was hurt on the _Essex_.