With one fleet at anchor, as Nelson demonstrated at the Nile, the proper business of the other was to drive ahead and try to break the line or turn an end of it.

This Captain Downie proceeded to attempt in a brave and highly skillful manner, with the _Confiance_ leading into the bay and proposing to smash the _Eagle_ with her first broadsides.

The wind failed, however, and the British frigate dropped anchor within close range of the _Saratoga_, which displayed Macdonough's pennant, and pounded this vessel so accurately that forty American seamen, or one-fifth of the crew, were struck down by the first blast of the British guns.
Meanwhile the _Linnet_ had reached her assigned berth and fought the American _Eagle_ so successfully that the latter was disabled and had to leave the line.

To balance this the _Chub_ was so badly damaged that she drifted helpless among the American ships and was compelled to haul down her colors.

The _Finch_ committed a blunder of seamanship and by failing to keep close enough to the wind, which soon died away, she finally went aground and took no part in the battle.