She escaped because her commander was not one of the kind to give up until he had not a plank that would swim. The _Peacock_ continued on the original cruise. Four rich Indiamen, with crews aggregating two hundred and ninety-one men, were captured, and then on June 30th she fell in with the East India Company’s cruiser _Nautilus_, Lieutenant Charles Boyce, a brig of less than half the size of the _Peacock_, and carrying four long nines and ten short eighteens. The _Nautilus_ was at anchor off Fort Anjers, in the Straits of Sunda. A boat from the _Nautilus_ took her purser on board the _Peacock_ to announce, according to Allen, that peace had been declared. Allen says that the purser “was instantly sent below, without being suffered to ask a question.” The _Peacock_ continued approaching the _Nautilus_, and the British captain “hailed and asked if the captain (of the _Peacock_) knew that peace had been declared.” Captain Warrington fully believed this hail was a ruse to enable the brig to escape to the protection of the fort, and ordered the brig to surrender. Captain Boyce refused, and one or two broadsides (accounts differ) were exchanged, when the brig, having lost seven men killed and eight wounded, and having been badly cut up as well, while the _Peacock_ was not even scratched, the British flag was lowered. The gallantry of the British captain was as praiseworthy as the marksmanship of his gunners was execrable. Allen says that Captain Warrington, in firing on the British brig, after Boyce’s hail, exhibited a “savage barbarity unworthy of a Red Indian.” Roosevelt says: “I regret to say that it is difficult to believe he (Warrington) acted with proper humanity.” Cooper says it was an “unfortunate mistake.” No writer on this subject seems to have asked himself seriously what he would have done had he been in command of a little sloop in the Straits of Sunda, with all the fleets of the mighty British Empire between him and a home-port--what he would have done had he found a legitimate prize just beyond the guns of a powerful fort of the enemy. Did a legitimate desire for self-preservation in that situation warrant the Yankee in taking every advantage possible of the enemy, and in doubting what the enemy, apparently caught at a disadvantage, might say?