ly another
broadside, which did great execution. The enemy were driven from their
guns, but doggedly refused to strike, holding out, doubtless, in the
hope that the cannonade might draw to their assistance some of the
other armed ships accompanying the fleet.

While the unequal combat was raging, a heavy squall came rushing over
the water. The driving sheets of rain shut in the combatants, and only
by the thunders of the cannonade could the other vessels tell that a
battle was being fought in their midst.

When the squall had passed by, the affrighted merchantmen were seen
scudding in every direction, like a school of flying-fish into whose
midst some rapacious shark or dolphin has intruded himself. But the
three men-of-war, with several armed West-Indiamen in their wake, were
fast bearing down upon the combatants, with the obvious intention of
rescuing their comrade, and punishing the audacious Yankee.

The odds against Thompson were too great; and after staying by his
adversary until the last possible moment, and pouring broadside after
broadside into her, he abandoned the fight and rejoined the "Alfred."
The two ships hung on the flanks of the fleet for some days, in the
hopes of enticing two of the men-of-war out to join in battle. But all
was to no avail, and the Americans were forced to content themselves
with the scant glory won in the incomplete action of the "Raleigh."
Her adversary proved to be the "Druid," twenty, which suffered
severely from the "Raleigh's" repeated broadsides, having six killed,
and twenty-six wounded; of the wounded, five died immediately after
the battle.

It was during the year 1777 that occurred the first attempt to use
gunpowder in the shape of a submarine torpedo. This device, which
to-day threatens to overturn all established ideas of naval
organization and architecture, originated with a clever Connecticut
mechanic named David Bushnell. His invention covered not only
submarine torpedoes, to be launched against a vessel, but a submarine
boat in which an adventurous navigator might undertake to go beneath
the hull of a man-of-war, and affix the torpedoes, so that failure
should be impossible. This boat in shape was not unlike a turtle. A
system of valves, air-pumps, and ballast enabled the operator to
ascend or descend in the water at will. A screw-propeller afforded
means of propulsion, and phosphorescent gauges and compasses enabled
him to steer with some accuracy.

Prelimina