The privateer _Saratoga_, of four guns, captured the English mail packet _Morgiana_, which carried eighteen guns, by boarding. There was an obstinate defence, and two of the packet's men were killed and five wounded, while the _Saratoga_ lost three killed and seven wounded. During the fight the mail was thrown overboard.
Near the Canary Islands a British sloop-of-war decoyed the privateer _Grampus_ under her guns, and then suddenly opened her ports and gave her a whole broadside at half pistol-shot. This discharge killed the captain and one man and wounded several others, and damaged the rigging badly, so that: the Grampus escaped with difficulty.
On Monday, the 5th of July, the _Yankee_, a fishing{ 222}smack, was fitted out in New York harbor to capture by stratagem the British sloop-of-war _Eagle_. A calf, a sheep, a goose, and three fishermen were placed conspicuously on the deck, while below were concealed forty men armed with muskets. She then sailed down the bay. The _Eagle_ overhauled her, and ordered her to report to the Commodore. Suddenly, at the signal word "Lawrence," the forty men appeared, levelled their muskets across the deck of the _Eagle_, and with one volley killed three of her men and drove the others below. She struck without firing a gun, and as she was taken up the harbor she was greeted by the cheers of a multitude of people who were on the Battery, celebrating Independence day.
While an American fishing-smack was thus capturing a British sloop-of-war in the harbor of New York, on the other side of the ocean the London _Evening Star_ was just saying: "The American navy must be annihilated; her arsenals and dockyards consumed. The American merchant-vessels ought perhaps to be permitted to arm against the pirates of the Mediterranean or the Ladrones of China; but, like certain places of entertainment in England, they ought to be compelled to exhibit in large letters, on their main-sails, _Licensed to carry guns, pursuant to a British act of Parliament._"
CHAPTER XIII. PEACE NEGOTIATIONS.--CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE CREEKS.
_Condition of Affairs at the Opening of the Third Year--Congressional Appropriations--Russian Offers of Mediation--Jackson's Preparations--Battles of Emucfau, Enotachopco, and Horseshoe Bend._