The most extraordinary of all his adventures befell when, after the attack on Stroemstad, he was hastening home to Copenhagen.  Crossing the Kattegat in a little smack that carried but two three-pound guns, he was chased and overtaken by a Swedish frigate of sixteen guns and a crew of sixty men.  Tordenskjold had but twenty-one, and eight of them were servants and non-combatants.  They were dreadfully frightened, and tradition has it that one of them wept when he saw the Swede coming on.  Her captain called upon him to surrender, but the answer was flung back: 

“I am Tordenskjold!  Come and take me, if you can.”

With that came a tiny broadside that did brisk execution on the frigate.  Tordenskjold had hauled both his guns over on the “fighting side” of his vessel.  There ensued a battle such as Homer would have loved to sing.  Both sides banged away for all they were worth.  In the midst of the din and smoke Tordenskjold used his musket with cool skill; his servants loaded while he fired.  At every shot a man fell on the frigate.

Word was brought that there was no more round shot.  He bade them twist up his pewter dinner service and fire that, which they did.  The Swede tried vainly to board.  Tordenskjold manoeuvred his smack with such skill that they could not hook on.  Seeing this, Captain Lind, commander of the frigate, called to him to desist from the useless struggle; he would be honored to carry such a prisoner into Goeteborg.  Back came the taunt: 

“Neither you nor any other Swede shall ever carry me there!” And with that he shot the captain down.[1]

[Footnote 1:  He was not mortally wounded, and Tordenskjold took him prisoner later at the capture of Marstrand.]

When his men saw him fall, they were seized with panic and made off as quickly as they could, while Tordenskjold’s crew, of whom only fourteen were left, beat their drums and blew trumpets in frantic defiance.  Their captain was for following the Swede and boarding her, but he couldn’t.  Sails, rigging, and masts were shot to pieces.  Perhaps the terror of the Swedes was increased by the sight of Tordenskjold’s tame bear making faces at them behind his master.  It went with him everywhere till that day, and came out of the fight unscathed.  But during the night the crew ran the vessel on the Swedish shore, whence Tordenskjold himself reached Denmark in an open boat which he had to keep bailing all night, for the boat was shot full of holes, and though he and his companions stuffed their spare clothing into them it leaked badly.  The enemy got the smack, after all, and the bear, which, being a Norwegian, proved so untractable on Swedish soil that, sad to relate, in the end they cut him up and ate him.