_Constitution_ yawed a little and fired two or three of her port
bow-guns. Three or four times the _Guerriere_ repeated this
manoeuvre, wearing and firing alternate broadsides, but with little
or no effect, while the _Constitution_ yawed as often to avoid
being raked, and occasionally fired one of her bow guns. This
continued nearly an hour, as the vessels were very far apart when
the action began, hardly any loss or damage being inflicted by either
party. At 6.00 the _Guerriere_ bore up and ran off under her
top-sails and jib, with the wind almost astern, a little on her
port quarter; when the _Constitution_ set her main-top gallant sail
and foresail, and at 6.05 closed within half pistol-shot distance
on her adversary's port beam. [Footnote: "Autobiography of Commodore
Morris" (Annapolis, 1880), p. 164.] Immediately a furious cannonade
opened, each ship firing as the guns bore. By the time the ships
were fairly abreast, at 6.20, the _Constitution_ shot away the
_Guerriere's_ mizzen-mast, which fell over the starboard quarter,
knocking a large hole in the counter, and bringing the ship round
against her helm. Hitherto she had suffered very greatly and the
_Constitution_ hardly at all. The latter, finding that she was ranging
ahead, put her helm aport and then luffed short round her enemy's
bows, [Footnote: Log of _Constitution_.] delivering a heavy raking
fire with the starboard guns and shooting away the _Guerriere's_
main-yard. Then she wore and again passed her adversary's bows,
raking with her port guns. The mizzen-mast of the _Guerriere_,
dragging in the water, had by this time pulled her bow round till
the wind came on her starboard quarter; and so near were the two
ships that the Englishman's bowsprit passed diagonally over the
_Constitution's_ quarter-deck, and as the latter ship fell off it
got foul of her mizzen-rigging, and the vessels then lay with the
_Guerriere's_ starboard bow against the _Constitution's_ port, or