_7th Position._ The _Richard_ runs athwart hawse of the _Serapis_. _6th Position._ The _Richard_ fills her topsails, and the _Serapis_ backs hers, which brings the two ships broadside and broadside. _5th Position._ The _Richard_ backs clear of the _Serapis_. _4th Position._ The _Serapis_, not having room to cross the _Richard’s_ bow, luffs up, and the _Richard_ runs into her quarter. _3d Position._ The _Serapis_ rakes the _Richard_ and attempts to cross her bow. _2d Position._ The _Serapis_ passes to windward of the _Richard_. _1st Position._ Battle begins at 7.30 P. M. A party of twenty soldiers had been placed upon the quarter-deck of the Richard, to pick off the gunners of the enemy, with their muskets. But they were assailed by such a murderous storm of grape-shot, that torn and bleeding, and leaving many dead upon the deck, they ran below. Men were stationed high up in the rigging of both the ships, who kept up an incessant fire upon all exposed persons. The two vessels, sometimes touching each other and again separated by but a few feet, moved slowly along, side by side, dealing such terrific blows as to cause each to stagger. They often crossed each other’s track, now passing the bow and again the stern. Captain Jones’s battery of twelve-pounders, upon which he had placed his main reliance, was soon entirely silenced. As in this terrible struggle broadside answered broadside, Captain Jones saw that the superiority of his enemy in weight of metal would inevitably give him the victory, if that mode of warfare were continued; especially as his own vessel was old and easily torn to pieces by the foe-man’s shot, while the Serapis was new, with solid timbers almost like ribs of steel. He resolved to board the foe. In attempting this his vessel became entangled with the jib-boom of the Serapis and tore it away. The grappling irons were again thrown out, and the two ships again swung together, broadside to broadside, so that the muzzles of their guns not unfrequently touched, and the gunners, in ramming down the charges, often ran their ramrods into the portholes of their adversary. With his own hand Captain Jones aided in tying the lashings, that the vessels might not again be separated. Still there was not a moment’s cessation of the cannonading. The timbers were torn and rent. Huge gaps were opened in the sides of each ship. The cloud of smoke which enveloped them was so dense that the combatants, in almost midnight darkness, fought mainly by the flash of their guns.