At this the _Endymion_ hoisted out five boats, large and small, and manned them with one hundred and eleven men. This was a most serious menace to the Yankee, for she had sent in so many prizes that only forty of her crew, at most (accounts differ--Coggeshall says thirty-three), including every one, remained. Nevertheless the Yankees triced up their nettings and prepared to fight it out. It was at about 9 o’clock at night that the boats arrived beside the privateer. They had spread out so that one came on each bow, one on each beam, and one astern. But the Yankee crew were ready, and when the British climbed up they were beaten back, and at the end of twenty minutes the British begged for quarter. One of their large boats, with forty-three men in it, had sunk. Another that had contained thirty-six men, surrendered, while the others drifted off with very few, indeed, to man the oars. Of the thirty-six originally in the boat that surrendered, eight had been killed and twenty wounded--twenty-eight out of thirty-six--say three-fourths. It is not unlikely that more than three-fourths of the entire attacking party were killed and wounded. Allen admits that the loss was twenty-eight killed and thirty-seven wounded out of the crews of the boats that returned to the ship. He makes no statement regarding the number lost either by wounds or as prisoners in the launch captured, but admits the capture. The killed and wounded in the launch should be added to the numbers given by Allen, so that the total British loss was at least thirty-six killed and fifty-seven wounded. The privateer lost seven killed and fifteen badly and nine slightly wounded--all but nine of those on board were hurt. It was a right desperate fight on both sides. And it shows what a few men can do when they fight with relentless determination. “The privateersmen gained the victory by sheer ability to stand punishment.” Meantime, when the battle began there were almost as many prisoners on board the privateers as there were Americans; when it was over the unhurt Americans had six times their number of the enemy to care for, besides nursing their own wounded. Yet they brought all safely into port. The _Lottery_, Captain Southcombe, of Baltimore, fought off for an hour nine British barges containing two hundred and forty well-armed men before she was taken, and the loss of the British in killed alone was many more than the whole crew of the Yankee. [Illustration: Fight Between the Brig _Chasseur_ and the Schooner _St. Lawrence_ off Havana, February 26, 1815. _From a lithograph in Coggeshall’s “Privateers.”_]