Seeing the Americans were vigilant, Captain Lockyer anchored his squadron, served breakfast, gave the men time to smoke and rest, and then ordered the advance. Captain Lockyer himself led the way, and with two other barges strove to board Number 156, where Jones commanded. For the moment it was a force of not less than seventy-five against the forty-one under Jones. But not one of them got over the rail of the gun-boat. Almost every man in Lockyer’s barge was killed or wounded, Lockyer himself being severely hurt; and as for the two other barges, both were sunk. But a whelming host had come. There were thirty-nine well-manned boats left to continue the attack, and this entire host was concentrated on the two gun-boats that had drifted down from the original line. They surrounded the two as a pack of hounds surround a fox. They rushed in until they felt the teeth of the bayed; they backed off and barked, and rushed in again, only to be beaten off once more by the desperate crew fighting under an indomitable leader. In a little time that leader was cut down, but another as heroic--Midshipman George Parker--took his place, and with equal gallantry and skill continued the fight. Almost the entire British force was now directed at the flag-boat. With their great guns they hailed grape and canister at short range, and again and again sought to carry it by boarding, only to be driven off, until at last Parker, too, fell wounded and wholly disabled. The boarding-nets had now been shot away. The crew was cut to pieces and there was no longer any officer to direct them. And yet when the British, seeing the advantage gained, made a last rush, these sailors stood to their posts until the sheer weight of numbers--a dozen of the enemy on one man--bore them down. Repeating for the sake of emphasis that there were, for the time, forty-two boats against two, how long does the uninformed reader suppose those American heroes held out against the hosts that swarmed to the rails? To the honor of the flag be it said that the firing began at 10.50 o’clock and it was not until 12.10 o’clock that the British were able to carry the deck of Number 156. _For more than one hour the Americans had held the ship._ And Sailing-master George Ulrich in Number 163, the smallest of the American fleet, did still better. For although he had at the beginning but twenty-one men on his boat, he was still fighting when the flag-boat was captured, and he did not surrender until her guns were turned upon him. The heart of the Americans was broken when the flag came down on these two, for the full force of the now victorious squadron was turned on the three above. Nevertheless, it was not until 12.30 o’clock that the last boat surrendered. It had taken nine hundred and eighty men with forty-two great guns one hour and forty minutes to whip the one hundred and seventy-two men on the five Yankee gun-boats.