Previous to the attack on Whitehaven, while off Carrickfergus, he had
conceived the bold project of running into Belfast Loch, where the
British man-of-war Drake, of twenty guns, was at anchor; where he hoped
to overlay the Drake's cable, fall foul of her bow, and thus, with her
decks exposed to the Ranger's musketry, to board. He did, indeed, enter
the harbor at night, but failed after repeated efforts, on account of
the strong wind, to get in a proper position to board. Three days later,
after the Earl of Selkirk affair, Jones was again off Carrickfergus,
looking for the Drake, which, having heard of his devastations from the
alarmed country people, sailed out to punish the invader of the sacred
soil of England. The two sloops of war were very nearly matched, though
the Drake technically rated at twenty guns and the Ranger at eighteen.
When they came within range of one another they hoisted their colors
almost at the same time, but the Drake hailed:--

"What ship is that?"

Jones directed the sailing-master to answer:

"The American Continental ship Ranger. We are waiting for you. Come on.
The sun is now near setting, and it is time to begin."

The Ranger then opened fire with a full broadside. The Drake replied
with the same, and the two ships ran along together at close quarters,
pouring in broadsides for more than an hour, when the enemy called for
quarter. The action had been, as Jones said in his terse official
report, "warm, close, and obstinate." There was little manoeuvring,
just straight fighting, the victory being due, according to Jones, to
the superior gunnery of the Americans. At first Jones's gunners hulled
the Drake, as she rolled, below the water-line, but Jones desired to
take the enemy's ship as a prize, rather than to sink her, and told his
men so.

"The alert fellows," he said in a letter to Joseph Hewes, "instantly
took this hint and began firing as their muzzles rose, by which practice
they soon crippled the Drake's spars and rigging, and made her an
unmanageable log on the water. I am persuaded that if I had not advised
them to this effect, my gunners would have sunk the Drake in an hour! As
it was, we had to put spare sails over the side after she struck, to
keep her afloat, and careen her as much as we could the next day to plug
the holes they had already made between wind and water."

The Drake, indeed, was almost a wreck, while the Ranger was little
injured. Jones lost only two men k