Your men are a set of tigers

From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 146. The defeat of the British Guerrier by the American Constitution.

The American ship now wore back and stood across the Guerriere’s bow, completing her picture of helplessness. From the Constitution a boat rowed over under a flag of truce, and Lieutenant George Read hailed the ship: “I wish to see the officer in command.” Dacres stood on the deck appearing slightly dazed. Read hailed again: “Commodore Hull’s compliments and wishes to know if you have struck your flag.”

The British officers had already held a council and agreed that further resistance was futile, but Dacres seemed to make an effort to utter the fateful words. “Well, I don’t know,” he finally said, “our mizzenmast is gone, our main-mast is gone—and upon the whole, you may say we have struck our flag.” Read asked if they could send their surgeon to lend assistance. “Well, I should suppose you had on board your own ship business enough for all your medical officers,” Dacres replied. “Oh, no, we have only seven wounded, and they were dressed half an hour ago.” Dacres then turned to Orne and said, “How our situations have suddenly been reversed: you are now free and I am a prisoner.”

The British captain came across in the boat to present his sword to Hull and formally surrender. “Your men are a set of tigers,” he said to Hull in wonderment. Not a single shot had hulled the Constitution; her casualties were seven dead and seven wounded. The British ship officially reported fifteen dead and sixty-two wounded, but Orne was certain that at least twenty-five more of her crewmen were dead, their bodies dumped over the side or the men swept to their deaths with the falling of the masts. The American victory had taken twenty-five minutes, and the accuracy of American fire had been decisive. Hull would later single out for praise his black sailors: “I never had any better fighters than those niggers,—they stripped to the waist, and fought like devils, sir, seemingly insensible to danger, and to be possessed with a determination to outfight the white sailors.”