The Enterprise And The Boxer

On September 5, 1813....

Source

...it was believed in Halifax that thereafter his Majesty's ships were to have as easy a time with ours as they had had with the French previous years. So the Boxer, a brig about the size of the Enterprise, fitted out to go in search of the Yankee coast-guard.

As the Enterprise was then really running from the Boxer, the Yankee crew thought Burrows intended to avoid fighting. This so greatly disgusted them that they asked Midshipman John H. Aulick to tell the captain they wanted to fight. The midshipman, as in duty bound, reported this to the first lieutenant, Edward R. McCall, who promptly assured them that they should have the fight they wanted at the proper time. And they had it.

The time came at 3:20 when with both crews cheering the Boxer ranged up within a few yards of the Enterprise--no farther away than from sidewalk to sidewalk of a narrow city street--and the firing began. 

Few fiercer fights with such forces have been described in history; but bad as the Enterprise now was as a sailer the Boxer was worse... . [Source]