The most that any one returned with was about ten.

Several boats floated ashore full of dead bodies....

For three days after the battle we were employed in burying the dead that washed on shore in the surf." This tragedy cost the British squadron one hundred and twenty men in killed and one hundred and thirty in wounded, while Captain Reid lost only two dead and had seven wounded.

He was compelled to retreat ashore next day when the ships stood in to sink his schooner with their big guns, but the honors of war belonged to him and well-earned were the popular tributes when he saw home again, nor was there a word too much in the florid toast: "Captain Reid--his valor has shed a blaze of renown upon the character of our seamen, and won for himself a laurel of eternal bloom." It is not to glorify war nor to rekindle an ancient feud that such episodes as these are recalled to mind.

These men, and others like them, did their duty as it came to them, and they were sailors of whom the whole Anglo-Saxon race might be proud.