We raised our anchor, and, with a favorable wind, got very early under sail. At 5 o'clock in the morning, we received orders to get in readiness for an engagement. About half after ten, we heard the sound of artillery; and soon after, under a splendid and auspicious wind, all the batteaux met the enemy's ships in a bay behind an island. The first sight, encountered by our advance guard, was a frigate of the enemy stuck fast on a stone cliff or island and abandoned; and soon after we saw two other frigates sending forth a lively fire. Besides this they had several arined gondolas, which, one after another, emerged from a small bay of the island firing rapidly and effectively. Every once in a while they would vanish in order to get breath, and again suddenly reappear.

Our attack with about 27 batteaux armed with 24, 12, and 6 pound cannon and a few howitzers became very fierce; and, after getting to close quarters, very animated. But now our frigates approached. One of them, the "Maria," having His Excellency; von Carleton on board, advanced and opened a lively cannonade. This one was replaced by the frigate "Carleton;" and as she in turn retreated, the "Inflexible" took her place only to retreat as the others had done, One of the enemy's frigates two of which were at echelier, or rather at echelon, one behind the other, began to careen over on one side, but in spite of this continued her fire. The cannon of the Rebels were well served; for, as I saw afterwards, our ships were pretty well mended and patched up with boards and stoppers.

Close to one o'clock in the afternoon, this naval battle began to get very serious. Lieut. Dufais came very near perishing with all his men; for a cannon ball from the enemy's guns going through his powder magazine, it blew up. He kept at a long distance to the right. The sergeant, who served the cannon on my batteau, was the first one who saw the explosion, and called my attention to it as I was taking aim with my cannon. At first, I could not tell what men were on board; but directly, a chest went up into the air, and after the smoke had cleared away, I recognized the men by the cords around their hats. Dufais's batteau came back burning; and I hurried toward it to save, if possible, the Lieutenant and his men, for, as an additional misfortune, the batteauewas full of water. All who could, jumped on board my batteau, which being thus overloaded, came near sinking. At this moment, a Lieutenant of artillery by the name of Smith, came with his batteau to the rescue, and took on board the Lieutenant, Bombadier Engell, and one cannonier. The remainder of Dufais's men, viz: nine cannoniers and nine sailors remained with me; and these, added to my own force of 10 cannoniers, 1 drummer, 1 Sergeant, 1 boy and 10 sailors ー in-all 48 persons came near upsetting my little boat, which was so over-loaded that it could hardly move. In what a predicament was I? Every moment I was in danger of drowning with all on board, and in the company, too, of those I had just rescued and who had been already half lost! It being, by this time, nearly evening, the batteaux retired. The Radeau arrived at dusk because, although we had a favorable wind, it was light, and it made, in consequence, but little headway. Any way, the two 4 pounders did their best, in firing at the frigates of the enemy, The distance, however, was too great, so that no ball was effective, and, the approach of night prevented our advancing nearer. This night a chain was formed of all the batteaux; and every one had to be wide awake and on the alert. The Captain's frigate, which had run aground, was set on fire at dusk by the orders of his Excellency; and her ammunition, blowing up, caused a fine fire lasting all night. Up to this time, nothing more occurred; for the enemy's frigates remained in the same place where they had acted on the defensive.

[12] Toward morning, however, it was clear that they had escaped. A pursuit was begun and some' vessels were captured. Five large and small vessels, which had entered a bay on the left shore were set on fire and abandoned by the enemy.

[13] The following night, my batteau, together with some other armed English batteaux, lost sight of the fleet on the Lake; ー and we were thus forced to continue rowing by guess-work the entire night that we might not be left behind. The next morning at day-break, we were lucky enough to meet a few English vessels which had met with the same experience as I had. Others followed in my rear, so that I arrived in time (ahead of some and behind others) at 9 o'clock A.M. at Crown-Point.

During our last engagement, Lieut. Dufais lost one cannonier named Rosemer, who was shot dead, and the drummer Pillant, and the pilot, who were burned up. A sailor, also, lost his leg by the same ball that killed the cannonier, and which dug a hole under the gun-carriage three inches above water mark. During this time all ate and drank rum and water together ー officers as well as men; and for a change, water and rum! Salt meat and Zweibach, continued to be our food.