A few days after the battle the Yankee _Peacock_ and the store-ship _Tom Bowline_ arrived. The store-ship was sent to Rio Janeiro with the prisoners, and then, after waiting until April 13th for the _President_ to come, the two sloops sailed away to continue the war in the East Indies. On April 27th a sail was seen and both vessels went in chase, and the next morning the _Peacock_ drew rapidly ahead of her older consort. Eventually, when the _Peacock_ was about six miles ahead, she suddenly hauled her wind and signalled that the stranger was a line-of-battle ship. This was at 2 P.M. of April 28, 1815. So both sloops took to their heels. The swift _Peacock_ had no trouble in getting out of the way, but the _Hornet_ was slow, and the liner chose to follow her. About the time the liner made the choice (she was the seventy-four _Cornwallis_, Admiral Sir George Burleton, K.C.B.) she lost a man overboard, and stopped to pick him up, but she soon made up the time so lost, and at 9 o’clock, seven hours after learning the character of the enemy, the _Hornet’s_ crew began to lighten ship. At 2 o’clock on the morning of the 29th the enemy was forward of the _Hornet’s_ lee beam and outfooting the Yankee rapidly, so the Yankee went about. The enemy followed, and at daylight, though still to leeward, was within gunshot, and her bow-chasers gave tongue. [Illustration: The _Hornet’s_ Escape from the _Cornwallis_. _From a wood-cut in the “Naval Monument.”_] That set the Yankees working for life. The anchors and cables, the spare spars, the ship’s launch, and the six cannon and some hundreds of round shot were tumbled into the sea. The _Hornet_ drew out of range then, but the wind hauled to the east, favoring the enemy, and once more the crew went at the work of lightening ship. They were sure they would be captured, but they would not give up. Three of the enemy’s shot had come on board, but these had done no injury. All the guns but one were now dumped into the sea, and so was everything else that could be spared. “Many of our men had been impressed and imprisoned for years in their horrible service, and hated them and their nation with the most deadly animosity, while the rest of the crew, horror-struck with the narration of the sufferings of their shipmates who had been in the power of the English, and now equally flushed with rage, joined heartily in execrating the present authors of our misfortune.” So wrote one of the _Hornet’s_ officers. This letter shows not only why the crew made every endeavor to escape; it shows why the fire of the _Hornet_ had been more effective than that of the _Penguin_. Their work, however, would have been vain but for another shift of wind. It came in a freshening gale from the west, and the _Hornet_ drew ahead. By sunset of the 29th the enemy was four miles astern. By sunrise of the 30th, after a squally night, the liner was twelve miles astern, and at 9.30 she abandoned the chase. The _Hornet_ reached home on June 9th.