Fearing she might escape, Captain Blakeley put up his helm, ran down under the _Avon’s_ lee, and as he ranged up under her quarter, gave her a raking broadside of bar shot and (presumably) langrage that set her rigging adrift in every direction. Another broadside of these projectiles was still more effective, for it brought down the fore-and-aft mainsail of the _Avon_, and it fell over the lee guns abaft the mainmast--the guns that bore on the _Wasp_--and for the time, put them entirely out of action, while her speed was materially diminished. It was a moonless night, but the crew of the _Wasp_ “could see through the smoke and gloom of the night the black hull of the _Avon_ as she surged through the waters; and aloft, against the sky, the sailors could be discerned, clustering in the tops.” No backwoods gunner would ask for a better target than was then afforded by the enemy. With their rifles the Yankee marksmen began to pick the British sailors from the _Avon’s_ tops as they had shot raccoons from the tree crotch, while those behind the great guns loaded with ball as the _Wasp_ ran through her lee, and aiming at the white line which the smoother and spoon drift drew along the bow and waist of the _Avon’s_ black hull, they fired with unerring precision. They had been under fire--they were veterans now, though but three months on board ship. Meantime the crew of the _Avon_ had returned the fire furiously--after the manner of the British sailors of that day. Their manner of fighting was described by Lord Howard Douglas as “uncircumspect gallantry.” The same author describes the handling of the _Wasp_ and of her guns with the words “wary caution.” As the Yankees with “wary caution” fired their second or third broadside of round shot, the mainmast of the _Avon_ fell over the rail, and her fire gradually died away while the men of the _Wasp_ with unabated vigor worked their guns. At 10 o’clock the fire of the _Avon_ ceased altogether, and Captain Blakeley hailed to ask her if she had struck. In reply the _Avon_ opened a feeble fire and for twelve minutes more the Yankee gunners continued their deadly work, when the _Avon_ being again silent, Blakeley once more hailed, and this time had the satisfaction of learning that the enemy had struck. An appalling work had been done, for it was the work chiefly of men who had in themselves never suffered visible wrong at the hands of the British. They had never been enslaved by a press-gang. They had never felt the lash of the cat. They struck at the enemy because of an inherited hatred--rather because of a hatred that came to them through tradition--and every blow struck home. [Illustration: Diagram of the WASP-AVON BATTLE.]