Three shots from the ship's 12-pounders struck the _Royal Savage_, which then ran ashore on the southern point of the island.

The _Inflexible_, followed closely by the _Carleton_, continued on, but fired only occasionally; showing that Arnold was keeping his galleys in hand, at long bowls,--as small vessels with one eighteen should be kept, when confronted with a broadside of nine guns.

Between the island and the main the north-east wind doubtless drew more northerly, adverse to the ship's approach; but, a flaw off the cliffs taking the fore and aft sails of the _Carleton_, she fetched "nearly into the middle of the rebel half-moon, where Lieutenant J.R.Dacres intrepidly anchored with a spring on her cable." The _Maria_, on board which was Carleton, together with Commander Thomas Pringle, commanding the flotilla, was to leeward when the chase began, and could not get into close action that day.

By this time, seventeen of the twenty gunboats had come up, and, after silencing the _Royal Savage_, pulled up to within point-blank range of the American flotilla.

"The cannonade was tremendous," wrote Baron Riedesel.