1812	Light Squadrons and Single Ships	110

the near approach of the stranger, and her not answering signals, soon marked her for an enemy : whereupon, removing her main yard from off the casks and lashing it to the deck, the Frolic hauled to the wind under her boom mainsail, and (her fore topmast having been sprung previously to the gale) a close-reefed fore topsail, in order to let her convoy pass sufficiently ahead to be out of danger.

At a few minutes before 11 a.m., apprehensive that the strange ship of war might pursue the merchantmen instead of himself, Captain Whinyates hoisted Spanish colours as a decoy ; having two days before passed a convoy under the protection of a Spanish armed brig, and which convoy, it was imagined that the strange vessel might also have seen. The latter, which was the United States' 18-gun ship-sloop Wasp, Captain Jacob Jones, five days only from the Delaware, immediately hoisted her colours, and bore down for the Frolic, then awaiting her approach on the larboard tack. On arriving within 60 yards of the Frolic, the Wasp hailed : whereupon, quickly exchanging her colours to British, the brig opened a fire of great guns and musketry. This was instantly returned by the Wasp ; and, as the latter dropped nearer to her antagonist, the action became close and spirited. In less than five minutes after she had commenced firing, the Frolic shot away the Wasp's main topmast ; and, in two or three minutes more, the latter's gaff and mizen topgallantmast also came down. The sea was so rough, that the muzzles of the guns of both vessels were frequently under water. Still the cannonade continued, with mutual spirit ; the Americans firing, as the engaged side of their ship was going down, the British, when their engaged side was rising. The consequence was, that almost every shot fired by the Wasp took effect in her opponents hull ; while most of the Frolic's shot passed among the rigging or over the masts of the Wasp.

Being in a very light state from a deficiency of stores, and being unable, on account of the sprung state of her topmasts and the want of a main yard, to steady herself by carrying sail, the Frolic laboured much more than the Wasp, and experienced, in consequence, greater difficulty in pointing her guns with precision. In a minute or two after the Wasp's main topmast had come down, the Frolic's gaff head-braces were shot away. Having now no sail whatever upon the mainmast, the brig had lost the means of preventing the Wasp from taking a position on her larboard bow. A ship would not have been so circumstanced, even had she lost her mizenmast by the board ; as she could still have set a trysail upon her mainmast.

Thus, in less than 10 minutes after the action had commenced, chiefly by her previous inability to carry sail, the Frolic lay an unmanageable hulk upon the water, exposed to the whole raking fire of her antagonist, without the possibility of returning it with more than one of her bow guns. The Wasp continued pouring

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