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Updated: June 22, 2025
The officer whose painful duty it was to signal the surrender of the Detroit said of this British flagship: "The ship lying completely unmanageable, every brace cut away, the mizzen-topmast and gaff down, all the other masts badly wounded, not a stay left forward, hull shattered very much, a number of guns disabled, and the enemy's squadron raking both ships ahead and astern, none of our own in a position to support us, I was under the painful necessity of answering the enemy to say we had struck, the Queen Charlotte having previously done so."
I went up into the mizzen-topmast cross-trees, taking my glass with me, and soon discovered that the report was only too correct; for when I reached my perch all three craft were heading straight for us, the lugger churning up the water with her sweeps and coming along at quite a smart pace, the brig following close behind, and the ship, in tow of her own boats, bringing up the rear.
A block, followed by a shower of splinters, came hurtling down on deck, breaking the arm of a man at the aftermost quarter-deck gun on the port side, and then a louder crash aloft caused me to look up just in time to see our mizzen-topmast go sweeping forward into the hollow of the maintopsail, which it split from head to foot, the mizzen-topgallant mast snapping short off at the cap as it swooped down upon the maintopsail yard.
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