“As I have endeavored to serve the cause of liberty, through every stage of the American Revolution, and have sacrificed to it my private ease, a part of my fortune, and some of my blood, I could have no selfish motive in permitting my people to demand and carry off your plate. My sole inducement was to turn their attention and stop their rage from breaking out and retaliating on your house and effects the too wanton burnings and desolation that had been committed against their relations and fellow-citizens in America, by the British; of which, I assure you, you would have felt the severe consequences, had I not fallen on an expedient to prevent it, and hurried my people away before they had time for further reflection.” We must now return from this episode to the continuance of Captain Jones’s cruise. In his letter to Lady Selkirk, he alludes to a naval battle with the ship Drake. After the descent upon Mary’s Island, Captain Jones again stood across the Channel from the Scottish to the Irish shore. On the morning of the 24th, he arrived off the Bay of Carrickfergus, and would again have entered, to make an attack upon the Drake, had he not seen that that ship was spreading her sails to come out. The wind was very light and the progress of the British ship slow. The captain of the Drake had heard of the ravages of the Ranger, for the appalling tidings had spread far and wide, and he was coming out in search of her. Seeing this vessel in the distance, a boat was sent out from the Drake to reconnoitre. Captain Jones kept the ship’s stern directly toward the approaching boat, and so succeeded in disguising his true character that though the boat’s crew carefully scrutinized him with a spy-glass, they were completely deceived, and, hailing the vessel, came alongside. As soon as the officer stepped upon the quarter-deck, he found, to his great surprise, himself a prisoner and his boat captured. Captain Jones learned, from his captives, that the night before an express had reached the Drake, with tidings of the destruction of the shipping at Whitehaven; and the Drake had immediately increased its crew by a large number of volunteers, and was now pressing forward in pursuit of the Ranger. Alarm fires were also seen on the eminences on both sides of the Channel, their columns of smoke rising high into the air. It was evident that the achievements of the bold little Ranger had created a great commotion, rousing all England to a sense of danger, for no one knew upon what point her next blows might fall. The wind was light and the tide unfavorable, so that the Drake worked out of the bay slowly. Captain Jones awaited her arrival, laying to with courses up, and main-topsail to the mast. At length, the Drake, having reached the mid-channel, came within hailing distance, and ran up the flag of England. At the same instant the Stars and Stripes were unfurled at the topmast of the Ranger. Still an officer on the quarter-deck of the Drake shouted out: