by John Marshall

“ The Epervier having now one gun only wherewith to return the fire of eleven; being already with four feet and a half water in her hold, and her crew failing fast beneath the heavy and unremitting fire of the Peacock, no alternative remained but to strike the colours, to save the lives of the few remaining good men in the vessel. This was done at 11-5 a.m., after the firing had lasted an hour; during three quarters of which the combatants lay close together, and during more than half of which, owing to the defects in the brig’s armament, the successful party had it all to himself. ”

“ She had some blacks, several other foreigners, lots of disaffected, and few even of ordinary stature: in short, the crew of the Epervier was a disgrace to the deck of a British man-of-war. We must be allowed to say, that, had her carronades been previously fired in exercise, for any length of time together, the defect in the clinching of her breeching bolts, a defect common to the vessels of this and the smaller classes, nearly all of them being contract-built, would have been discovered, and perhaps remedied. ”

“ Having by this time shot away the brig’s main-top-mast, and rendered her completely unmanageable, the Peacock directed the whole of her fire at her opponent’s hull, and presently reduced the Epervier’s three waist guns to the disabled state of the others. At 11 a.m., as if the defects in the fighting-bolts were not a sufficient disaster, the breeching-bolts began to draw. There being no immediate remedy here, an effort was made to get the brig round, in order to present a fresh broadside to the enemy ”