Thereafter neither the British nor the Yankee commander did anything in the way of fighting, though both were very busy superintending ship-carpenters. Sir James was eager to get a liner afloat, that was to carry one hundred guns, while Chauncey was working over his sixty-two-gun frigate. Sir James had a force afloat that was stronger than the Yankee force, but once the Yankee _Superior_ was in commission, the preponderance would be the other way, and Sir James (like Chauncey) was not going to take any chances in battle unless he had the greater force. For six weeks the two squadrons lay idly in port. Meantime, however, Lieutenant F. H. Gregory of the American navy engaged in “two very gallant cutting-out expeditions.” On June 16th, with twenty-two men in three row-boats, he started away across the lake to intercept some of the enemy’s provision-schooners, and on the 19th fell in with the British gun-boat _Blacksnake_ armed with a short eighteen-pounder and carrying eighteen men. Gregory at once carried the boat by assault without the loss of a man. He burned the boat and carried the men into Sackett’s Harbor; and then on July 1st he descended on Presqu’ Isle, where he “burned a fourteen-gun schooner just ready for launching” and once more escaped without loss. With these two incidents only to mar the calm, the time passed until July 31st, when Chauncey got clear of the port. He now had a fleet of eight vessels, of which the largest (the _Superior_) carried a crew of five hundred men, with thirty long thirty-two pounders, two long twenty-fours, and twenty-six short forty-twos. The smallest, a brig, the _Oneida_, carried one hundred men and was armed with two long twelves and fourteen short twenty-fours. As a whole the squadron measured 5,941 tons, carried 1,870 men, and mounted two hundred and twenty-eight guns that fired 3,352 pounds of metal at a broadside. Sir James Yeo had as many ships as Chauncey, but the best of the British squadron carried thirty-two long twenty-fours, four short sixty-eights, and twenty short thirty-twos--an inferior armament to that of the Yankee _Superior_; and the whole Yankee force is fairly said to be as six to five in comparison with the British. Sir James conceded this superiority of force, “which would certainly preclude Yeo from advancing any claims to superiority in skill or courage.” So there was no fight. Perhaps it should be added that Chauncey was dangerously sick during July and had to be carried on board ship when he sailed, on July 31st.