King George made for New London, where there was much cheering in
the port, and "even the women, both young and old, expressed the
greatest joy."

With no very heavy fighting, Talbot had captured five vessels and
was keen to show what his crew could do against mettlesome
foemen. He found them at last well out to sea in a large ship
which seemed eager to engage him. Only a few hundred feet apart
through a long afternoon, they briskly and cheerily belabored
each other with grape and solid shot. Talbot's speaking-trumpet
was shot out of his hand, the tails of his coat were shorn off,
and all the officers and men stationed with him on the
quarter-deck were killed or wounded.

His crew reported that the Argo was in a sinking condition, with
the water flooding the gun-deck, but he told them to lower a man
or two in the bight of a line and they pluckily plugged the holes
from overside. There was a lusty huzza when the Englishman's
mainmast crashed to the deck and this finished the affair. Silas
Talbot found that he had trounced the privateer Dragon, of twice
his own tonnage and with the advantage in both guns and men.

While his crew was patching the Argo and pumping the water from
her hold, the lookout yelled that another sail was making for
them. Without hesitation Talbot somehow got this absurdly
impudent one-masted craft of his under way and told those of his
sixty men who survived to prepare for a second tussle.
Fortunately another Yankee privateer joined the chase and
together they subdued the armed brig Hannah. When the Argo safely
convoyed the two prizes into New Bedford, "all who beheld her