The British frigate engaged the line-of-battle ship single-handed for more than an hour, before her consort, which was several miles astern when the action commenced, could get up to assist her.  At length, reaching the enemy, the Amazon poured a broadside into her quarter, and then, with the Commodore, maintained the engagement until about half-past seven, when the Indefatigable found it necessary to repair her rigging, and both frigates shot ahead.

At a little past eight, the frigates renewed the action, and placing themselves one on either bow of the Droits de l’Homme, raked her alternately.  The seventy-four brought her guns to bear upon one or the other of her antagonists as well as she could, and occasionally attempted, but without success, to close.  At half-past ten, her mizenmast was shot away, when the frigates changed their position, and attacked her on either quarter.  Soon after she began to fire shells.  The gale continued all night, with a very heavy sea, and the violent motion of the ships made the labour of the crews most excessive.  On the main-deck of the Indefatigable, the men were often to the middle in water.  Some of her guns broke their breechings four times; others drew the ring-bolts, and from some, the charge was obliged to be drawn after loading, in consequence of the water beating into them.  But under these most trying circumstances, the crew did their duty nobly.  The Amazon, being a smaller ship, experienced still greater difficulties than the Indefatigable.  She emulated her consort most gallantly, and suffered a greater loss.  Her masts and rigging were very much damaged; her mizen-top-mast, gaff, spanker-boom, and main-topsail-yard being entirely shot away; the main and foremast, and the fore and main yards wounded in several places by large shot; many of her shrouds, stays, and back-stays shot away, besides those which had been knotted and stoppered in the action; all her spare cordage was expended in reeving running rigging, and she had three feet water in the hold.  The loss of men in both ships was remarkably small.  The Amazon had three killed, and fifteen badly wounded; and the Indefatigable, though she had so long fought the seventy-four single-handed, had only her first lieutenant and eighteen men wounded; twelve of them slightly, and the two worst cases from accidents.  The lower-deck guns of the enemy were nearer the water than is usual in line of-battle ships, and in consequence of the heavy sea, she could use them only occasionally.  From this cause, as well as from the excellent positions maintained by the frigates, and her crippled state through the latter part of the action, she could make but a very unequal return to their fire.  She suffered very much.  More than a hundred of her people were killed—­a severe loss, yet small compared to what it must have been, from the crowded state of her decks, and the unprecedented length of the action, if the darkness, the heavy gale, and the consequent motion of the ships, had not made the firing slow, and the aim uncertain.