On the 8th of April she left Philadelphia with a large merchant fleet in company, which had been waiting patiently until the new cruiser should be ready to convoy them past the capes of the Delaware. All went smoothly on the way down the bay; but at Cape May, as the wind was southerly, the fleet anchored, waiting for a favorable breeze. They were in this position when suddenly a force of the enemy, composed of a frigate and a sloop-of-war, was seen rounding the cape on its way to attack them. Barney ordered the convoy to retire up the bay out of harm's reach, and the vessels tripped their anchors and made sail before the southerly wind, the "Hyder Ali" staying behind to cover their retreat.
Now it happened that there was--and still is, for that matter--in the lower part of the bay, a widely-spreading shoal called the Overfalls, which divided the water into two channels. The convoy on its way up took the eastern channel, and thither it was followed by the "Hyder Ali." The frigate went up on the western side, hoping by this means to overtake and cut off some of the merchantmen without hindrance at the upper end of the shoal. But the sloop, her captain being more ambitious or more reckless, followed in the wake of the convoy; and thus it came to pass that in a short time she had caught up with the "Hyder Ali," which, seeing that the enemy's force was divided, was taking no great pains to get away from her. The sloop was the "General Monk," which under the name of the "Washington" had once been an American privateer, but had been captured by the enemy.
Although the "Monk" alone was considerably heavier in force, as she carried twenty 9-pounders to his sixteen 6's, Barney waited for her to join battle. His object was to get her so to place herself that he would be able to rake her; that is, by lying across her bow or stern, to make his broadside sweep her decks from one end to the other. This he accomplished by a stratagem. As the "Monk" approached his quarter, he sang out to his helmsman to "port the helm," so loud, that the enemy could hear him. If the quartermaster had obeyed his order, it would have given the "Monk" an advantage by enabling her to rake his stern; but Barney had arranged beforehand that the helmsman should do just the opposite of what he said. The result was that the "Hyder Ali" was thrown squarely across the bow of the sloop, so that a moment later her jib-boom was entangled in the American's rigging, where she was held fast, and Barney had her at his mercy. He poured his broadside the whole length of her decks, and she could barely answer now and then with a single gun. After half an hour's contest she surrendered.