On the Ocean 247 



Diadem's launch. The battery's guns were not fired 

 till the British were close in, when they opened 

 with destructive effect. While still some seventy 

 yards from the guns the Diadem's launch grounded, 

 and the attack was checked. Three of the boats 

 were now sunk by shot, but the water was so shal- 

 low that they remained above water; and while the 

 fighting was still at its height, some of the Con- 

 stellation's crew, headed by Midshipman Tatnall, 

 waded out and took possession of them. 41 A few 

 of their crew threw away their arms and came 

 ashore with their captors; others escaped to the 

 remaining boats, and immediately afterward the 

 flotilla made off in disorder, having lost 91 men. 

 The three captured barges were large, strong boats, 

 one called the Centipede being fifty feet long, and 

 more formidable than many of the American gun- 

 vessels. The Constellation's men deserve great 

 credit for their defence, but the British certainly 

 did not attack with their usual obstinacy. When 

 the foremost boats were sunk, the water was so 

 shallow and the bottom so good that the Americans 

 on shore, as just stated, at once waded out to 

 them; and if in the heat of the fight Tatnall and 

 his seamen could get out to the boats, the 700 

 British ought to have been able to get in to the 

 battery, whose 150 defenders would then have 

 stood no chance. 42 



41 "Life of Commodore Josiah Tatnall," by Charles C. 

 Jones, Jr. (Savannah, 1878), p. 17. 



4> James comments on this repulse as "a defeat as discred- 

 itable to those that caused it as honorable to those that suf- 



