We are told these vessels were sloops, ' probably such as ordinarily sailed on the North-river ; and that the night of the fourteenth of August was appointed for the attempt to burn the ships ; but, from some unexplained cause, without having aroused any suspicion, however, the attempt was not, then, made. 2 Two nights later, thatof the sixteenth of August, it was " pretty dark,'' and the tide was also favorable ; and the mischief-laden sloops were unmoored, and allowed to drift with the tide, silently, up the river, toward their proposed victims. The Rose's tender is said to have been anchored as a look-out, ahead of the ships; 3 and Captain Thomas, without having been discovered by the enemy, steered his sloop alongside of her ; grappled her ; and lighted his fires. The flames from the burning vessels afforded light to Captain Fosdick, who, with very great ability, so directed his sloop that she fell alongside of the Phoenix, and grappled her, notwithstanding every effort of seamanship, on board the ship, was made to prevent it. With her fires fiercely burning, the sloop continued alongside the Phoenix, nearly a quarter of an hour, during which time the latter was also set on fire, in four places ; and she was finally saved from total destruction, " almost miraculously," by a sailor who leaped, naked, on board the sloop, and, with an axe, " disengaged the "chain of the grappling which had " linked the two vessels together." ' It is said, 5 very reasonably, thatthelowness of the burning sloop, when alongside of the vastly larger frigate, prevented the more complete ignition of the latter ; and that, after the vessels had been separated, the sloop was sunk by her intended victim. We are told, 6 also, that, as soon as she was disentangled from the burning sloop, "the Phoenix either cut "or slipped her cable; let fall her foresail; wore "around; and stood up the river; being imme- " diately veiled from the spectators by the darkness of "the night;" that "the Pose and the other two "tenders remained at their moorings, although it was