The "Wasp" was not to gather the fruits of victory, however. Soon after the battle an English line-of-battle ship, the "Poictiers," came in sight, and her great battery of seventy-four guns, before which both the little sloops would have fled had they been able to make sail, found them an easy capture. But all the same the real battle had been fought and the real victory won; and the loss of the two disabled ships in the face of such an overwhelming force was as nothing in its real import to the added proof which Captain Jones had given that American ships could meet and conquer on the seas an equal foe.
Just before the "Wasp" had set out on her short but eventful cruise, Commodore Rodgers had put to sea again with his squadron. Soon after leaving New York, the "United States," still under Capt. Stephen Decatur, separated from the other ships, and steering to the southeast, proceeded alone across the Atlantic. The "United States" was now in the highest condition of efficiency: the captain had taken great pains to train the crew in all that was needed to make them good fighting men; and his efforts had been seconded most worthily by his first lieutenant, William Henry Allen, the same who had proved his gallantry in the affair of the Chesapeake.
About two weeks after leaving port, on the 25th of October, when in the neighborhood of Madeira, the "United States" sighted a strange vessel to the southward, which turned out to be the British frigate "Macedonian." She was considered at this time to be the finest frigate in His Majesty's Navy, and was, commanded by Capt. John Carden. It seems that when Decatur had been cruising off our coast in his frigate before the war, he had met the "Macedonian," and he and Carden had become good friends,--at least as far as could be in those troublesome times,--and had often exchanged good offices and hospitality. Thus they had talked from time to time about the strength of the two frigates, and of the probable result in case they should one day meet in battle. In these friendly conversations Captain Carden would dwell upon the disadvantage, as he thought it, of the American batteries; seeing that they carried 24-pounders where the English carried eighteens, which last, so he thought, were handled more easily and quickly, and were as heavy as a frigate ought to carry.