There were six feet of water in the hold. The flood, in streams, was rushing in. The ship was apparently sinking. At that awful moment one of the officers rushed below and, with humane intentions, released three hundred prisoners who were in the hold. They came pouring upon deck in a frenzy of dismay. Water would drown them in the hold. Bullets and cannon-balls would strike them on the deck. The Richard was on fire in several places. The rudder was cut off the stern-frame, and the transoms shot away. Fire had broken out in several places. It was burning within a few inches of the powder magazine. The timbers on the ship’s side, from the main-mast to the stern, were entirely shot away, so that the balls of the Serapis passed directly through, meeting with no obstruction but the bodies of men. A few blackened posts alone prevented the upper deck from falling. The flames were so near the magazine that Captain Jones ordered the powder kegs to be brought up and thrown into the sea. He compelled the prisoners to work at the pumps, and in the endeavor to extinguish the flames. They were indeed ready enough to do this; for the sinking of the ship would drown them, and they were in imminent peril of being burned up by the conflagration. In the midst of this awful confusion, after the battle had raged for two and a half hours, Captain Pearson thought he heard the cry of some one on board the Richard calling for quarter. This cry probably came from the quartermaster. “Hearing this,” Captain Pearson writes, “I called upon the captain, to know if he had struck. No answer being made, after repeating my words two or three times, I called for the boarders and ordered them to board; which they did. But the moment they were on board the Richard, they discovered a superior number, lying under cover, with pikes in their hands ready to receive them; on which our people retreated instantly to their guns again, till after ten o’clock.” The powder-boys of the Serapis, whose business it was to bring up the cartridges for the guns, appalled by the horrible scene, of dismounted guns, mutilation, and death, scarcely knowing what they did, threw the cartridges upon the deck, and went back for more. The cartridges were trampled upon and broken. The deck was soon quite covered with cartridges and loose powder. A hand grenade, thrown from the Richard, set fire to this, and produced an awful explosion. The effect was horrible. More than twenty were instantly blown to pieces. Many others had every particle of clothing blown from their bodies, and were thrown down, writhing in agony, blackened, and scorched almost to cinders, Captain Pearson, in his official report says: