After this the fighting was chiefly confined to short, sharp affrays between the smaller United States ships and the French privateers, which were generally good sailers and well manned, although deficient in metal.For two hours she kept within easy range of the barges and her gunners, working deliberately, did fearful execution in the ranks of the enemy, and sunk three barges before the wretched fugitives could home school texas reach the shore.Matches, locks, or loggerheads were nowhere to be found.But the painful home school texas pause before the battle was not long.It was then growing dark, though the faint glow of the long tropic twilight still lingered on the western horizon.Late in a summer's afternoon a suspicious sail was made and home school texas the chase, begun at once, had continued until nightfall.After some days stay at Hampton Roads, during which time additional guns and stores were taken on, and the crew increased to three hundred and seventy five men, the ship got under way, and started on her voyage.All the remainder of that day, and until noon of home school texas the next, the chase continued, with but little change in the position of the ships.The fault lay with the privateers for not responding to the hail, but the Americans did all in their power to repair the damage done.On the low lying shores of the islands, some hundreds more of the Picaroons had gathered to watch the conflict and, as the boats became short handed from the carnage, they home school texas put back to the shore, and returned to the fight fully re enforced.Onward over the smooth waters came the huge barges, each with its twenty six oars, looking like a mighty centipede.A careful search for handcuffs resulted only home school texas in failure.News travelled slowly in those days and the tidings of this latest British insult did not reach the United States until the Baltimore, returning home, brought it herself.These gentry, known as Picaroons, seemed to have a natural inclination for piracy and the unlucky merchant captain who should come to anchor, or be becalmed, near one of the islands, was sure to see his vessel boarded, and his cargo plundered, by a lawless horde of Frenchmen and mulattoes, whose dialect home school texas was an unmusical combination of French and African tongues.While all hands were thus busily engaged, the Leopard bore down rapidly, and soon hailed, saying that she had a despatch for Commodore Barron.