The fleet of the enemy, though manned by picked men—by men known not only for their bravery, but for their skill in handling the guns—was obliged to draw off to get beyond the range of the smaller guns on the American fleet.
The Congress, Arnold’s flagship, was hulled by the British round shot no less than twelve times during the afternoon, and seven of these projectiles passed through her at the water-line. But the crew, farmers though they were, plugged her up and fought on as before.
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While the British had been disabling all but three or four of the guns on the upper deck of the Bonhomme Richard, the men in the tops of the Yankee ship and the murderous fire of the nine-pounders, which Jones himself had worked, had gradually driven all the men off the upper deck of the Serapis.
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Failing in getting enough men in this fashion—as, for instance, when the ship was in a foreign port or on the high seas—it was the custom, the every-day custom, to send the press-gang, on board any ship where it was supposed that English-speaking sailors might be found, and there take and carry off all such sailors.
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The British ships even lay to off New York, Boston, and other American ports to intercept American merchantmen, from which seamen were taken until they were so short-handed that they were lost.
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The crowning outrage, however, came in the year 1807. Early in that year a squadron of British warships had congregated in the mouth of Chesapeake Bay to blockade some Frenchmen lying at Annapolis.
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