On April 24, 1778, on the North Channel, a ship duel, one of the first battles that took place on British waters. It was between a British merchant ship called Drake and a colonial warship called Ranger. The Americans, since 1777, had been sneaking into British waters and capturing their ships and giving them to the French. The British were scared of the French and had their ships concentrated away from the North Channel, leaving it open to the Americans. The Ranger left France on April 10th and after a failed attempt of capturing a port ran into the Drake and failed to capture it too. They burned a different ship down and headed back with an improved morale to capture the Drake. The Drake had prepared by collecting more men to fight.
