When a few days out, the _Hornet_ separated from her consorts and thereafter proceeded without incident worth mention until, on March 23, 1815, she arrived at the group of Tristan d’Acunha. An action which followed on the day she arrived was the next to the last one of the war. Allen, in beginning his description of the two last, says: “Two actions of a disgraceful character to the Americans remain to be recorded.” He then tells that Captain Biddle, commanding the _Hornet_, spoke to a neutral ship on March 20th, when the neutral captain said he had heard that peace had been declared. “Information coming in this questionable shape was not binding,” says Allen, but “it was Captain Biddle’s duty to have acted cautiously before setting it at defiance.” He did not act as cautiously as Allen thinks he should, and so the action was “of a disgraceful character to the Americans.” As to the facts, there is no dispute, save in the minor matters of the number of each crew and the size of a couple of guns, so the reader is able to decide for himself how far the action disgraced the American flag. Having reached the anchorage off the tiny settlement on the main island of the group at about 11 o’clock in the morning of March 23, 1815, the sheets of the head-sails on the _Hornet_ were let go preparatory to swinging her up into the wind and dropping her anchor. But no sooner had the sails begun to flap than the lookout announced a sail in sight, and hauling aft the sheets once more the _Hornet_ stood out to sea for a look at the stranger. As it happened, the strange vessel was the British brig sloop _Penguin_, Captain James Dickenson, a new vessel on her first cruise. She had sailed from England to the Cape of Good Hope. When there, news arrived that a heavy Yankee privateer called the _Young Wasp_ had been making prizes of British Indiamen, using Tristan d’Acunha as a retreat when water and fresh meat were needed. Accordingly, Admiral Tyler, commanding the squadron, sent the _Penguin_ to the lonely group to capture the venturesome privateer, placing on board of her twelve marines from his own ship, the _Medway_, to make sure that she had enough men. [Illustration: The _Hornet_ and _Penguin_. _From an old wood-cut_.] So it happened that when the _Penguin_ reached the island and saw a sail there, Captain Dickenson thought he had had the good luck to alight on the saucy privateer. Being fearful that the supposed privateer would run away, the _Penguin_ was handled very carefully. Captain Dickenson did not want the Yankee to see how many guns the _Penguin_ carried and so kept her end on to the _Hornet_ as he came down wind to capture her--came down wind because he was fortunate enough to come into the fight with the wind in his favor.