After deliberating for an hour, the stranger stood off. In the morning, the Guerriere was reported to have four feet water in the hold, and was so cut up that it would be difficult to keep her afloat. The prisoners were, therefore, all removed, and the vessel set on fire. The flames leaped up the broken masts, ran along the bulwarks, and wrapped the noble wreck in a sheet of fire. As the guns became heated, they went off one after another, firing their last salute to the dying ship. At length, the fire reached the magazine, when she blew up with a tremendous explosion. A huge column of smoke arose and stood for a long time, as if petrified in the calm atmosphere, and then slowly crumbled to pieces, revealing only a few shattered planks to tell where that proud vessel had sunk. The first English frigate that ever struck its flag to an American ship of war, had gone down to the bottom of the ocean, a gloomy omen of England's future. The sea never rolled over a vessel whose fate so startled the world. It disappeared for ever, but it left its outline on the deep, never to be effaced till England and America are no more. The loss of the Constitution was seven killed and seven wounded, while that of Guerriere was fifteen killed and sixty-four wounded, a disparity that shows with how much more precision the American had fired. It is impossible, at this period, to give an adequate idea of the excitement this victory produced. In the first place, it was fought three days after the surrender of General Hull, the uncle of the gallant captain. The mortifying, stunning news of the disaster of the North-western army met on the sea-board, the thundering shout that went up from a people delirious with delight over this naval victory. From one direction the name of Hull came loaded with execrations--from the other overwhelmed with blessings. But not only was the joy greater, arriving as the news did on the top of a disaster, but it took the nation by surprise. An American frigate had fearlessly stood up in single combat on the deep with her proud foe, and giving gun for gun, torn the crown from the "mistress of the sea." The fact that the Constitution had four guns more and a larger crew, could not prevent it from being practically an even-handed fight. The disparity of the crews was of no consequence, for it was an affair of broadsides, while the vast difference in the execution done, proved that had the relative weight of metal and the muster roll been reversed, the issue would have been the same. Captain Hull on his return to Boston, surrendered the frigate to Bainbridge, who soon after hoisted his broad pennant on board, but did not put to sea till the 26th of October. [Sidenote: Oct. 12.]