On August 8, 1775, the HMS Falcon, commanded by British Captain John Linzee, captured a schooner from Hispaniola bound for Salem, while a second schooner escaped into Gloucester Harbor. The Falcon pursued it and anchored near Ten Pound Island, and Linzee sent thirty men in the Falcon's jolly boat and pinnace, with Lieutenant Thornborough and six privates in a whaleboat, armed with muskets and swivel guns, to recapture the schooner. As alarm bells rang, the Gloucester militia hurried to the waterfront, found the British boarding the schooner, and under Captains Joseph Foster and Bradbury Sanders opened fire, striking three sailors and wounding the lieutenant, forcing the British back to the Falcon. Linzee then sent a cutter and the other prize schooner into the harbor and opened artillery fire on the town, hitting several houses and the steeple of the first parish meetinghouse but failing to silence the bell. After several hours of fighting, the militia repulsed several attempts to set fire to the town, recaptured both seized schooners, and took Linzee's sailing master gunner, fifteen seamen, seven marines, one boy, and ten prest americans, along with the pinnace, jolly boat, three swivels, some small arms, and two small anchors with one hawser. The muster roll for Captain Daniel Warner's first company for the defense of the seacoast recorded that Peter Lurvey and Benjamin Row(e) were killed in the action with Linzee.