But the day came, as the Yankee captains had agreed it would, when Napoleon succumbed entirely. Out came the white cockades; the tricolor disappeared. No longer was it "the Emperor," but "the King," and the first request that England made was that the Yankee shipping in French ports should be confiscated and the privateers detained. Great was the consternation of the skippers; some who had crews sufficient in number to man their vessels put to sea instanter and were taken in by the Channel squadron forthwith. Others remained waiting for the weather to thicken and trusting that King Louis would hesitate long enough to give them a chance for life. But the order came at last. The privateers were to be allowed to leave the harbor any time they found a chance to do so; but before they left, the French King, who was holding fast to his rickety throne, and was merely kept in place by the supporting arms of England, Russia, and Germany, issued a decree. It was to the effect that the vessels should sail unarmed; that their broadsides should be taken from them, their cutlasses and small-arms removed, and thus shorn of their teeth and claws, they should be allowed to depart. As every merchantman, almost without exception, in those days carried at least four or five guns handy on the spar deck, this decree was equivalent to presenting them to any English vessel that might get range of them. Before the order could be executed more of the vessels got to sea, and not a few were gobbled up at once by the English cruisers; some were forced to put back again, and only one or two ever reached the shores of America. The day the news arrived early in May, Captain Edgar was one of the first to get his anchor in and make out past the headland as soon as dusk had settled. In a few minutes Symington, also, although his vessel was very short-handed, was getting up his mainsail, and he too would have sailed no doubt, had there not suddenly arisen a sound of firing from the offing. Of course there being now peace between France and England, it was possible for the English ships to anchor beside the Americans if they had chosen to do so, and in fact in some of the harbors so penned in were the privateers, that, as one captain expressed it, "they would have to sail across the deck of a seventy-four to escape to sea." England had respected the neutrality of the French ports thus far; but if an American vessel was seen preparing to get under way, she would be watched carefully, and if not accompanied by an English ship, her going out would be signalled to the blockaders off the shore. As the cannonading was kept up for so long a time, Captain Symington supposed, or at least hoped, that the _Siren_ had escaped her enemies. Perhaps the confusion that followed would be a good moment for him to take advantage of, and he determined to sail out at once.