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 were astonished that a vessel of her diminutive size could suffer so much and yet get safely to port." Men fought and slew each other in those rude and distant days with a certain courtesy, with a fine, punctilious regard for the etiquette of the bloody game.

There was the Scotch skipper of the Betsy, a privateer, whom Silas Talbot hailed as follows, before they opened fire: "You must now haul down those British colors, my friend." "Notwithstanding I find you an enemy, as I suspected," was the dignified reply, "yet, sir, I shall let them hang a little bit longer,--with your permission,--so fire away, Flanagan." During another of her cruises the Argo pursued an artfully disguised ship of the line which could have blown her to kingdom come with a broadside of thirty guns.