he citadel in the
endeavor to win it back, but each time she signally failed.

A seemingly auspicious time arrived in 1779 when she secured the
co-operation of France. For the succeeding four years a relentless siege
was laid to the fortress by the combined land and naval forces of Spain
and France. Both nations summoned to their aid their ablest generals and
admirals, using every conceivable device and strategy to capture the
fortress, but all in vain.

During the first years of this siege the supreme command of both land
and naval forces rested with the Spanish, but, having met with failure
after failure, they were ready at length to give way to the French, who
promised to capture the stronghold by constructing a powerful fleet of
battering-ships, enabling them to fight at close range, so that gun to
gun and man to man should decide the contest.

The French engineer who prepared the armament cut down the huge bulwarks
of the sides of ten of the Spanish battle-ships and proceeded to
reconstruct them within and without. The reconstructed ships were much
like the _Merrimac_, that did such destructive work in our Civil War,
except that they were not armored with iron. Triple beams of heavy oak
with layers of sand and cork between them were used for encasing these
huge hulks. For protecting the crews heavy timbers covered with rope and
hides were used.

On September 12, 1782, fifty line-of-battle ships flying flags,
together with a fleet of smaller vessels, lined up before the town. This
formidable fleet was supported on land by an army of forty thousand men
reinforced with batteries of the heaviest ordnance stretched along the
shore. To oppose these the English commander, General Eliott, had
ninety-six pieces of artillery and seven thousand men. So confident was
the enemy of success that the triple-armored battering-ships moved
boldly up to within half-gunshot range.

At a signal the English opened fire, which was instantly answered by the
floating batteries and the whole shore line; four hundred guns were then
playing on the beleaguered town. Soon death and destruction were made
evident on both sides. There seemed to be but one thing for the English
to do to save themselves, and that was to set fire to the enemy's ships.
Accordingly, furnaces were placed beside the batteries in which heavy
cannon balls were made white-hot. The guns, shotted with these glowing
balls, were then turned on the ships. The enemy attempted