La Gloire threw guns and other equipment overboard to gain speed, but was caught by Blakeney; Victoire managed to elude Hawke long enough to escape in the night.
Shortly afterwards, off the east end of Jamaica, he was attacked by a well-manned 16-gun French privateer, which managed to tangle its jib-boom with Prussian Hero's rigging, potentially allowing many men to board.
In June 1775, during the "Battle of Bunker Hill", much of Charlestown was destroyed, including Day's home, as (according to what he told his 1777 captives) he discovered when he returned from a voyage to the West Indies.
[5] A 370-ton British merchant vessel, the Isaac of Liverpool, which had been captured on the way home from the West Indies by John Philips in the privateer sloop Warren, and taken to Salem, Massachusetts,[4] was converted to a fighting frigate with twenty 9-pound guns and six 4-pounders, and rechristened the General Mifflin.
[6] Two days before this period expired, Day captured a British cargo vessel bound from London to New York, laden with salt, sherry, dried fruit and bark- which, having safely arrived at an American-controlled port on 25 June, was also found to carrying an interesting letter from a London merchant firm to business partners in New York, observing that "we have no doubt (supposing the present campaign to be as ineffectual as the last) that the colonies will remain independent," and pondering future business prospects.
[4] One vessel, the Tartar sailed to the waters north of Scotland and preyed with great success on the Baltic shipping route, but Captain Day chose a bolder plan.
Thus the British public learned that Day was in his sixties or seventies, somewhat lame from gout, and walked with two sticks; that he had taken some personal possessions (gold and silver watches) from one of the captains who tried to conceal them on the advice of another captive; and that, having approached, as was then usual, under English colours, when ready to attack he raised a white flag with a pine tree and the words "Appeal to Heaven" (a Massachusetts naval ensign).
The newspapers also reported, a week after the initial drama, that the Mifflin had met with the Royal Navy sloop of war Wolfe in the Bristol Channel, and surrendered after a three-hour battle.
Admiral du Chaffault, commander of the French naval forces based in the port, consulted for an hour and a half, then ordered the firing of an acknowledgement.
The French, although they had first offered aid to America back in 1775, and had been supplying both matériel and military advisors since 1776, were not yet ready to form an open alliance, so the official line was that the Mifflin had put in at Brest for repairs, that the salute was a misunderstanding, and that France had vessels on patrol to keep privateers away- any then in port were ordered to leave.
[10] He was allowed in, and at the beginning of September he was still there (or at least, in the neighbouring harbour of Port Louis) when a French acquaintance offered to deliver a report of his cruise to Benjamin Franklin at Versailles, which the Captain happily provided.