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

" said that one of the tenders was deserted by her " crew, for a time ;" that the tender which was grappled by Captain Thomas was burned to the water's edge and was towed to the shore, by the Americans, 7 by whom one iron six-pound gun, two three-pounders, one two-pounder, ten swivels, a caboose and apron, some gun-barrels, cutlasses, grapplings, chains, etc., were taken from the wreck ; and that the gallant crews of the fireships sustained neither loss nor injury, except in the instance of one man, who, in setting fire to his vessel, was considerably burned in his face, hands, etc., and in that of Captain Thomas, who, it was feared, perished in the attempt to fasten his vessel to the tender which it destroyed or in making his escape, by swimming, as he was not subsequently heard of.