At length his guns being dismounted, Captain Reid ordered his men to cut away the masts of the ship, blow a hole through her bottom, and taking out their arms and clothing, go ashore. Soon after the British advanced and set her on fire. Van Lloyd then made a demand on the Governor for Captain Reid and his crew, threatening in case of refusal to send an armed force and take them. Fearing that the Governor would not be able to prevent their arrest, this gallant band retired to an old convent, knocked away the drawbridge, determined to defend themselves to the last. The English commander had no desire to place his crews again under the deadly aim of those daring men, and abandoned the project. The American loss in this engagement was only two killed and seven wounded. Thus dearly did England pay for this violation of the laws of a neutral port. That brig, cruising successfully to the close of the war, could not have inflicted so heavy damage on the enemy as she caused in her capture. The gallant bearing and patriotic feeling that marked these little cruisers are worthy of record, while the hair-breadth escapes--the tricks employed to entice merchantmen within their reach--the wit and humor exhibited in hailing and answering the hails of vessels--the saucy and irritating acts committed on purpose to provoke--the good-natured jokes they cracked on those they had first outwitted, then conquered, would make a most characteristic and amusing chapter in American history. Captain Boyle, of the Chasseur, took great delight in provoking frigates to chase him, and when they abandoned the pursuit as hopeless, he would affect to chase in turn, teazing and insulting his formidable adversaries, who tried in vain to cut some spar out of the winged thing in order to lessen her fleetness. Cruising along the English coast, this vessel had some very narrow escapes. While here the captain overhauled a cartel, and sent by it a proclamation with orders to have it stuck up in Lloyd's coffee house, declaring the whole British Empire in a state of blockade, and that he considered the force under him sufficient to maintain it. This was probably one of the finest private armed vessels afloat during the war. Buoyant as a sea-gull, she sat so lightly and gracefully on the water, that it seemed as if she might, at will, rise and fly. Fleet as the wind, she was handled with such ease that the enemy gazed on her movements with admiration. [Sidenote: Feb. 26, 1815.]