The antagonists were so evenly matched in every respect that there was no room for excuses, and on both sides were displayed such stubborn hardihood and a seamanship so dauntless as to make an Anglo-Saxon proud that these foemen were bred of a common stock.
The _Wasp_ had sailed from the Delaware on the 13th of October, heading southeast to look for British merchantmen in the West India track.

Her commander was Captain Jacob Jones, a name revived in modern days by a destroyer of the Queenstown fleet in the arduous warfare against the German submarines.

Shattered by a torpedo, the _Jacob Jones_ sank in seven minutes, and sixty-four of the officers and crew perished, doing their duty to the last, disciplined, unafraid, so proving themselves worthy of the American naval service and of the memory of the unflinching captain of 1812.
The little _Wasp_ ran into a terrific gale which blew her sails away and washed men overboard.

But she made repairs and stood bravely after a British convoy which was escorted by the eighteen-gun brig _Frolic_, Captain Thomas Whinyates.

The _Frolic_, too, had been battered by the weather, and the cargo ships had been scattered far and wide.