At that the British seamen on the _Confiance_ were called from their guns and set to work on spring and cable to wind her around and bring a fresh battery to bear also, for while she had suffered less than the _Saratoga_ had, the _Confiance_ had lost perhaps two-thirds of her battery by the accurate shooting of Macdonough’s long guns. No sooner did the British try to wind their ship than the superiority of Yankee forethought and seamanship became manifest. For while the Yankee _Saratoga_ swung into position with scarce a break or stop, the British _Confiance_ got so far around as to point her stern to the Yankees, where not one of her guns could bear, and there she stuck. Wriggle and twist, haul and curse, as they might (and did) the end was at hand, with triumph for the gridiron flag. With a verve that made the side tackles rattle, the Yankees brought their fresh guns to bear on the unprotected stern of the British frigate, and thereafter their shot ripped up her deck from stern to anchor bits. They filled the air with splinters. They splashed the guns and beams with blood. They drove the men from the guns and left her a wreck. Their commander, Captain Downie, was long since dead, killed by a gun that was knocked over by a Yankee shot to fall on him. Lieutenant John Robertson, who succeeded, was both brave and capable, but no one could stand up in such a fight, and two hours after firing her first broadside the British frigate struck her flag to the Yankee corvette. And then the Yankees once more hauled in on their hawser until their guns would bear on the irritating British brig _Linnet_ that had been bravely battering away at them. The _Linnet_ was commanded by Captain Pring, of the Royal Navy, and he was spurred on by the fact that he had been beaten at the mouth of Otter Creek and had been reprimanded by Sir George Prevost. The odds were now as much against him as they had previously been against the Yankee _Saratoga_, but he held on bravely, hoping that relief would come from the gun-boats, while he sent a lieutenant in a boat over to the British flagship to learn the real condition of affairs. The lieutenant brought back the news that not only was the British frigate out of it, and her captain dead, but the _Finch_ as well as the _Chubb_ had surrendered, and the British gun-boats had been driven off when they swarmed at the _Ticonderoga_. And then Captain Pring turned to look at his own vessel only to find that her masts were shot to pieces, her rigging gone, her sides full of shot holes and the water in her hold above the berth deck and rapidly rising. He had fought his ship to the last gasp. He had earned the right to haul down his flag with never a tinge of shame. Two hours and fifteen minutes after the dreadful broadside of the _Confiance_, the last British flag afloat fluttered to the deck, and the firing died out with two wide apart shots at the retreating gun-boats. [Illustration: The Battle of Plattsburg.