10     LIGHT SQUADRONS AND SINGLE SHIPS     1811

would bear, ceased firing; and the President, finding that to be the case, did the same. Shortly afterwards Commodore Rodgers, hailing the Little-Belt, learnt, what he and his officers must have known before, that she was a British ship, but did not, it appears, hear her name ; and, to a question, desiring to know if his antagonist had struck, was answered by Captain Bingham in the negative. The latter then asked the name of the American frigate ; but the same cause, the increased freshness of the wind, that had prevented the commodore from hearing the whole of the answer to his question, kept Captain Bingham in ignorance of the name, though not of the nation, of the ship by which the Little Belt had been so battered and ill-used.

The damages of the Little-Belt were indeed, as might be expected, of a very serious description. The greater part of her standing and the whole of her running rigging were cut to pieces : not a brace nor a bowline was left. Her masts and yards were all badly wounded, and her gaff was shot away. Her upperworks were completely riddled, and her hull in general much struck : several shot were sticking in her side, and some had entered between wind and water. Nothing, we conceive, but the lowness of her hull in the water, and the consequent difficulty of hitting it, prevented the sloop from being sunk. The loss on board the Little-Belt bore a proportion to her damage : she had one midshipman (Samuel Woodward), seven seamen, and one marine killed, two seamen mortally, her acting master (James M'Queen), seven seamen, one boy, and two marines severely, and her boatswain (James Franklin), five seamen, two boys, and two marines slightly wounded total, 11 killed and mortally wounded, and 21 wounded severely and slightly. The President appears to have had her sails and rigging slightly injured, and to have received one 32-pound shot in her foremast and another in her mainmast : her loss is also represented not to have exceeded one boy wounded.

After the action the President wore, and, running a short distance to leeward of the Little-Belt, came to the starboard tack, to repair her trifling damages. This done, the frigate filled and lay to on different tacks, in order to wait until daylight should afford the commodore a clear view of what his prowess had effected. The Little-Belt brought to on the larboard tack, and commenced her more serious occupation of repairing damages and stopping leaks. During the night the sloop's topgallantmasts were got on deck, and the cut rigging partially repaired.

At daylight on the 17th the President, now about nine miles to windward, bore up under topsails and foresail, and, to all appearance, ready to renew the action. At 8 a.m. the American frigate passed within hail, and the commodore said : " Ship ahoy! I'll send a boat on board, if you please, sir." - "Very well, sir," was Captain Bingham's reply. The boat came, under the command of the first Lieutenant John Orde Creighton, with

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