his men could hide below. The two schooners fought in the veiling
smoke until the American could ram her bowsprit over the other's
stern and pour her whole crew aboard. In the confined space of
the deck, almost two hundred men and lads were slashing and
stabbing and shooting amid yells and huzzas. Lieutenant Barrette,
the English commander, only twenty-five years old, was mortally
hurt and every other officer, excepting the surgeon and one
midshipman, was killed or wounded. Two-thirds of the crew were
down but still they refused to surrender, and Captain Diron had
to pull down the colors with his own hands. Better discipline and
marksmanship had won the day for him and his losses were
comparatively small.

Men of his description were apt to think first of glory and let
the profits go hang, for there was no cargo to be looted in a
King's ship. Other privateersmen, however, were not so valiant or
quarrelsome, and there was many a one tied up in London River or
the Mersey which had been captured without very savage
resistance. Yet on the whole it is fair to say that the private
armed ships outfought and outsailed the enemy as impressively as
did the few frigates of the American Navy.

There was a class of them which exemplified the rapid development
of the merchant marine in a conspicuous manner--large commerce
destroyers too swift to be caught, too powerful to fear the
smaller cruisers. They were extremely profitable business
ventures, entrusted to the command of the most audacious and
skillful masters that could be engaged. Of this type was the ship
America of Salem, owned by the Crowninshields, which made
twenty-six prizes and brought safely into port property which