As the early morning passed and 8 o’clock drew nigh, the idle seamen in the lookout boat suddenly bent to their oars and drove the swift cutter, with signals fluttering in the air, into the bay. The long roll of the drums beating to quarters on the Yankee ships followed. The white new royals of the British frigate, with fluttering flags and pennants above them, appeared over the lower stretches of Cumberland Head, and then, led by the little sloop _Chubb_, followed by the brig _Linnet_, with the huge frigate _Confiance_ third and the little sloop _Finch_ and the flock of gun-boats last of all, the whole squadron of the enemy rounded the point. With “rattle of block and sheet,” the squadron came up into the wind and with flapping canvas drifted, while Captain Downie looked the American squadron over. And then in the order already named they filled away, with the wind coming into their sails over the starboard (right hand) bows, and headed up toward the north end of the American line. The wind and the space favored the British this far, that they could choose whether they would fight at long range or run in, yard-arm to yard-arm, where valor and muscle would determine, and Downie, knowing the superiority of his long guns, wisely chose to fight at long range. As the British sails fell asleep under the influence of the breeze, and their bows came ploughing up the bay, “Macdonough, who feared his foes not at all, and his God a great deal, knelt for a moment, with his officers, on the quarter-deck.” And thereafter, in perfect silence the men of the whole American squadron stood at their posts and waited for the coming enemy--stood in silence while the British sailors cheered again and again in anticipation of victory. Finally, however, when the British brig _Linnet_, that, next to the British sloop _Chubb_, was in advance, had arrived within a mile of the Yankee brig _Eagle_ at the north end of the Yankee line, the hot blood of her commander could stand inaction no longer and his long eighteen began to bark. It was a waste of effort, for his shot fell short and the firing ceased. A little later the British brig _Linnet_, on arriving abreast of the Yankee _Saratoga_, opened fire with her long twelves, but all these shots too, fell short, save one, and that one was, in a way, the most notable shot of the whole battle, for it knocked to pieces a chicken-coop belonging to a sailor who, being a man of sporting blood, “had obtained, by hook or by crook,” a fighting cock of great repute in Plattsburg. Instead of showing fear at the destruction of its coop, this cock flew to a commanding place above the rail, and there, after flapping its wings vigorously, it crowed loud and long in the manner of its race; whereat the Yankee sailors all laughed and whooped and cheered vociferously. [Illustration: The Battle of Lake Champlain. _From an old wood-cut._]