A Royal Navy squadron on its way to Jamaica and Louisiana attacked the American privateer General Armstrong while she was at anchor in Horta.

Captain Loyd ordered a pinnace under Lieutenant Robert Faussett be sent from Plantagenet to ascertain the nationality of the stranger in port.

[4][5] According to British reports, Lieutenant Faussett was unable to stop his boat in the rough tides and it drifted too close to General Armstrong.

[7][8] At about 9:00 pm, twelve boats armed with carronades and filled with 180 marines and sailors from Plantagenet and Rota were towed into battle by Carnation, which stopped out of gun range.

Just after 9:00 pm the British boats advanced, but accurate American fire and strong currents kept Carnation from closing the range and she was damaged.

It took Lieutenant Matterface and his boats until about midnight to reach General Armstrong, largely due to the current but partly because of where Loyd had stopped his ships.

14,[11] Elias Jose Ribeiro, Governor of Fayal, described the bloodshed in a letter to the United States Ambassador to the Portuguese Court, Thomas Sumter: The loss of the British was most extraordinary; their consul told me that he knew the list of the killed and wounded to amount to one hundred and sixteen, and it is supposed to have been much greater, for I myself saw three of the twelve boats without one person in them, and as they retreated I saw that one had only two on board, another only five, others only seven or eight.

Reid's men fired nails, knife blades, brass buttons, and other makeshift projectiles from their cannon which reportedly caused severe pain to the surviving British.

[13][14] Captain Reid and the crew of General Armstrong were credited with helping delay the British attack on New Orleans and when they returned to America they were greeted as heroes.