The engagement between the ships was fiercely contested, but the smaller and more lightly armed Boston seemed to be taking the more serious damage when at 6:20 Captain Courtenay was thrown to the deck. What happened next has been subject to debate, with the second-in-command, Lieutenant John Edwards claiming that Courtenay had been killed and he was thrown overboard as was the custom at the time. However rumours subsequently circulated that Courtenay had only been knocked unconscious when Edwards gave the order to jettison him, a story that his family credited and was later taken up by the contemporary historian Edward Pelham Brenton, although historian William James subsequently defended Edwards' actions. With Courtenay gone, Boston continued to suffer severe damage until just after 07:00