"Captain Barry has distinguished himself exceedingly on the river; he had collected several of the gun-boats which formerly belonged to the gallies, with three of them, having a four-pounder in each, and others only manned with musquetry, he attacked two large ships loaded with forage from Rhode-Island,¹ under convoy of a tender, mounting eight carriage guns,² both of the ships had 4 six-pounders. He attacked them with great spirit, and after a warm engagement of half an hour, the ships surrendered.—He then pursued the schooner, and parading all his boats, sent a flag to demand the surrender, with which the Captain (a Lieutenant in the navy) thought proper to comply,³ though with a tolerable stock of spirit he might have kept off double the number,—he then took all his prizes to Reedy-Island, and the next tide the Eagle man of war⁴ and several other ships of force came up,⁵ seeing these three vessels laying at the piers they came too, by this time the prizes were unloaded of every thing valuable, and the men had formed an intrenchment of the bundles of pressed hay; a severe cannonade then commenced, when the little garrison observing preparations to land, they set fire to the vessels, except the schooner, into which Barry, in order to save her, had thrown himself——the enemy perceiving the ships on fire, desisted from landing, and our men kept possession of the shore, having mounted the cannon taken from the ships, with which they engaged the enemy and hulled them repeatedly——Barry was soon overtaken by one vessel, who detained him till some others came up, six were observed firing upon him at once. Finding it impossible to get up, he ran the schooner ashore and left her, from whence she was towed off in a very mutilated condition. All the cargoe except the hay is preserved——the schooner had four brass howitz, and some curious instruments in the engineers department, with a great number of letters. We have taken about 100 prisoners; 1 Captain⁶ and a company of artificers, 1 Lieutenant of artillery and about 60 sailors, all of whom are safe at Wilmington.—In short, it is as gallant an action as any during the war, and does great honour to the brave officer and his associates who planned and executed it."