On the morning of May 23rd, before daylight, the search-light of the Government torpedo gunboat _Almirante Condell_ revealed in the distance the presence of the _Blanco Encalada_. The torpedo gunboat had the _Almirante Lynch_ as companion, and the pair lost no time in attacking the ironclad, which was at anchor with banked fires, as part of her machinery was ashore undergoing repairs. The _Condell_ opened the ball with her torpedo, which missed, and followed it with discharges from her Hotchkiss gun. The _Lynch_ also brought her Hotchkiss gun into play, and as both vessels were firing end-on, they presented a very small target to the ironclad, upon which, however, they could make little impression. The _Blanco Encalada_ answered the fire, but ineffectively. The torpedo boats, attacking her from different sides, discharged five more torpedoes, which missed, and though the ironclad was firing carefully, the steel armour of the smaller vessels turned aside her shot and shell. At last a shell from the ironclad dropped on the _Condell_, doing a great deal of damage. The _Lynch’s_ Hotchkiss gun played havoc with everything and everybody on the _Blanco Encalada’s_ deck and above it. “The officers of the _Lynch_ now determined to make a supreme effort. Her flag was run up to the peak, and her Hotchkiss gun became silent. She worked round until she was bow on to the starboard side of the _Encalada_, and then there was a swish from the tube of the _Lynch’s_ ram. The _Encalada_ got her search-lights on the approaching missile, as she had on the other four, her gunners poured a leaden rain on to it for the purpose of sinking it. This, time, however, the aim of the torpedo was true, and the storm of shot from the _Encalada_ failed to destroy it. The steel torpedo net also failed to avert the messenger of destruction, so sudden and unexpected was the attack. The torpedo struck the _Encalada_ just abaft the foremast, and a deafening explosion followed. A huge hole yawned in her starboard side, extending below the water-line, and the ironclad quickly filled. Terror reigned on board the doomed ironclad, and the men scrambled into the boats hanging upon the rear davits, which were the only ones which had not been destroyed by the fire of the guns. Both the _Condell_ and the _Lynch_ now opened fire from the Hotchkiss guns, and scores of men were killed while attempting to escape. Many of the sailors sprang into the water, only to meet death by drowning, or being eaten by sharks, with which the bay abounds. The ironclad quickly settled and, with a sudden lurch, went down in less than three minutes, with her officers and crew. Out of two hundred men, only twelve escaped.”[47]