Captain Lawrence’s report said fifteen minutes. In explanation of the difference Lawrence said his clerk got it down as fifteen by mistake, and the time was so short at most that it was not worth while making an alteration in the log. “I thought that was short enough,” said Lawrence. Immediately after hauling down their flag the _Peacock’s_ mainmast fell, and the enemy hoisted signals of distress. The crew of the _Hornet_, under Lieutenant J. T. Shubrick, made haste to get out all their boats and board the _Peacock_. Both ships came to anchor and the Yankees found the water pouring through the big holes the shot of the _Hornet_ had made in the _Peacock_. The crew were unable to save her. For a few minutes everybody labored to plug the holes and work the pumps and even at bailing with buckets. But the ship was mortally wounded--the inflowing water was drowning her--and the men abandoned the pumps to save the wounded. Four Englishmen jumped into a boat at the stern and sneaked ashore in the night that was fast coming down. The wounded were all saved, but within a brief time the water rose to the port sills, flowed gently in across the deck and down she sank in the smooth sea. “A vessel moored for the purpose of experiment could not have been sunk sooner.” [Illustration: John T. Shubrick. _From an engraving by Gimbrede._] As she sank, four of the men on deck scampered up the fore-rigging. The big launch lying on the booms amidships was lifted clear by the rising water, and into this scrambled the rest of the men on deck. The ship was sinking so easily that there was no vortex to draw them down. She found bottom in thirty-three feet of water, and the men in the fore-rigging were saved. But three Americans and nine Englishmen who were below were lost. After taking the men from the rigging the launch was paddled over to the _Hornet_, and it was learned then, that three of the _Peacock’s_ crew were impressed Americans, one of them being a relative of the wife of Captain Lawrence. [Illustration: The _Hornet_ Sinking the _Peacock_. _From an old wood-cut._] One of these men was Richard Thompson, of New Paltz, Ulster County, New York. He testified under oath that he was taken from an American merchant-ship in 1810 by the _Peacock’s_ press-gang. Thereafter he was not allowed to write to his friends. When he and his two American shipmates heard of the War of 1812, they asked Captain Peake to treat them as prisoners of war. For this they were put in irons for twenty-four hours, then taken on deck, stripped naked, “tied and whipped, each one dozen and a half lashes, and put to duty.” As the action with the _Hornet_ came on they again asked to be excused from fighting against their flag, but Captain Peake drove them back to the guns, and ordered the marines to keep an especial watch on them, and shoot them at the first sign of flinching. And so one was killed by the fire of his countrymen.