dside, he again
called out that he had surrendered. It was with great difficulty that
Captain Biddle could restrain his crew from firing into him again, as
it was certain that he had fired into the Hornet after having
surrendered.

From the firing of the first gun to the last time the enemy cried out
that he had surrendered, was exactly twenty-two minutes. The vessel
proved to be the British brig Penguin, of twenty guns, a remarkable
fine vessel of her class, and one hundred and thirty-two men, twelve
of them supernumeraries from the Medway seventy-four, received on
board in consequence of their being ordered to cruise for the
privateer Young Wasp.

The Penguin had fourteen killed and twenty-eight wounded. Among the
killed was Captain Dickenson, who fell at the close of the action. As
she was completely riddled, and so crippled as to be incapable of
being secured, and being at a great distance from the United States,
Captain Biddle ordered her to be scuttled and sunk.

The Hornet did not receive a single round shot in her hull, and though
much cut in her sails and rigging was soon made ready for further
service. Her loss was one killed and eleven wounded.

ALGERINE WAR.

Immediately after the ratification of peace with Great Britain, in
February 1815, Congress, in consequence of the hostile conduct of the
regency of Algiers, declared war against that power. A squadron was
immediately fitted out, under the command of Commodore Decater,
consisting of the Guerriere, Constellation and Macedonian frigates,
the Ontario and Epervier sloops of war, and the schooners Spark,
Spitfire, Torch and Flambeau. Another squadron, under Commodore
Bainbridge, was soon to follow this armament, on the arrival of which,
it was understood, Commodore Decater would return to the United States
in a single vessel, leaving the command of the whole combined force to
Commodore Bainbridge.

The force under Commodore Decater rendezvoused at New York, from which
port they sailed the 20th day of May, 1815, and arrived in the Bay of
Gibraltar in twenty-five days, after having previously communicated
with Cadiz and Tangier. In the passage, the Spitfire, Torch, Firefly
and Ontario, separated different times from the squadron in gales, but
all joined again at Gibraltar, with the exception of the Firefly,
which sprung her masts, and put back to New York to refit. Having
learned at Gibraltar that the Algerine squadron, which had been out
into the At