Knowing very well what the Englishmen would think of the looks of the squall, Captain Hull kept his boats at their towing and sent the men about deck to the belaying pins, where sheets and tacks and halyards were made fast, while others stretched out clew-lines and bunt-lines, and downhauls. Standing so with everything in hand, he watched the coming cloud until the frothing spoondrift was within a mile, and the first faint breath of it was lifting the royals, and then to the shrill pipe of the boatswain called the boats alongside. As they were hooking on the tackles the blast struck the ship. Over she heeled as if to go on her beam ends, lifting the boats to windward clear of the water, while the men at the halyards and sheets let go all, and all hands clapped on to the clew-lines and downhauls and boat-tackles. In a moment the last sail had been clewed into a bunt, and the boats to windward and leeward were snatched to the davits and spars rigged to receive them. Turning then, to look at the enemy, he saw the men climbing aloft and with eager haste _furling_ everything, while their boats were left to shift as they might in the foaming sea. They had supposed from what they saw of the effect of the squall on the _Constitution_ that it was even worse than it looked, and they snugged down their ships accordingly. And then, as the friendly rain and vapor of the squall veiled the wily Yankee, he spread his sails--sails that had not been furled--to the gale and “went off on an easy bowline at the rate of eleven knots an hour.” The race was won. At 7.30 P.M., when the squall had passed and the enemy once more came in view, the leading ship, the _Belvidera_, was not only a long way astern, but she had the wind in such fashion as to be unable to hold up within two points of the course the _Constitution_ was steering. And yet in their mad efforts to overhaul the Yankee after they felt the weight of the squall, the British captains had cut adrift their small boats, that they might not be obliged to stop and pick them up or be encumbered with the weight.