and the opponents. When round, he opened fire on the
"General Pike." As this movement, if continued, would bring the
leading and strongest British ships upon the weaker Americans astern,
Chauncey put his helm up and steered for the "Wolfe" (b), as soon as
the "General Pike" came abreast of her; the American column following
in his wake. The "Wolfe" then kept away, and a sharp encounter
followed between the two leaders, in which the rest of the squadrons
took some share (Positions 3).

At the end of twenty minutes the "Wolfe" lost her main and mizzen
topmasts, and main yard. With all her after sail gone, there was
nothing to do but to keep before the wind, which was fair for the
British posts at the head of the bay (Positions 4). The American
squadron followed; but the "Madison," the next heaviest ship to the
"Pike," superior in battery power to the "Wasp" and "Hornet" of the
ocean navy, and substantially equal to the second British ship, the
"Royal George," "having a heavy schooner in tow, prevented her
commander from closing near enough to do any execution with her
carronades."[109] The explanation requires explanation, which is not
forthcoming. Concern at such instants for heavy schooners in tow is
not the spirit in which battles are won or campaigns decided; and it
must be admitted that Commodore Chauncey's solicitude to keep his
schooners up with his real fighting vessels, to conform, at critical
moments, the action of ships of eight hundred and six hundred tons,
like the "Pike" and "Madison," to those of lake craft of under one
hundred, is not creditable to his military instincts. He threw out a
signal, true, for the fleet to make all sail; but as he held on to the
schooner he had in tow, neither the "Madison" nor "Sylph" dropped
hers. His flagship, individually, appears to have been well fought;
but anxiety to keep a squadron united needs to be tempered with
discretion of a kind somewhat more eager than the quality commonly
thus named, and which on occasion can drop a schooner, or other small
craft, in order to get at the enemy. As the dismasted "Wolfe" ran to
leeward, "the 'Royal George,'" says the American naval historian
Cooper, "luffed up in noble style across her stern to cover the
English commodore" (c), and "kept yawing athwart her stern, delivering
her broadsides in a manner to extort exclamations of delight from the
American fleet (Positions 5). She was commanded by Captain Mulcaster."
Her fighting mate