lieving that the
enemy would run as soon as we appeared. When the leading boats, under
the command of Captains Freemantle and Bowen, had got within half
gunshot of the mole head, the enemy took the alarm, and immediately
opened fire on us from forty heavy guns. A hot fire it was, I assure
you. The `Fox' cutter, crowded with men, was sunk by the heavy shot
which struck her, and nearly a hundred of those on board perished. I
was in the `Terpsichore's' barge with my brave captain, when, just
before she reached the mole, a shot struck her, and down she went,
drowning seven of my shipmates; but the captain, with the rest of us,
managed to get on shore. In spite of the hot fire with which we were
met from the mole head, we succeeded in effecting a landing, and drove
the enemy before us. Having spiked the guns which had done us so much
mischief, we advanced along the mole, led by Captain Bowen, and our
first lieutenant, Mr Thorpe. Here we encountered a tremendous fire of
musketry from the Citadel and houses, so that the greater number of our
party were either killed or wounded. Our brave leader, Captain Bowen,
was among the first who fell, and soon afterwards Lieutenant Thorpe was
killed. Nearly all the rest of the officers were killed or wounded. It
being found at last that there was no chance of success, we were ordered
to fall back.

"We had neither seen nor heard anything of Sir Horatio who would have
been certain, had not something happened to him, to have been ahead. We
now learned that just as he was landing and about to draw his sword, he
had been struck by a shot on the elbow, and that he had been carried on
board his ship by the few men who remained in the boat, the rest having
landed. One of them, John Lovell, who I knew well, as soon as he saw
the Admiral wounded, took the shirt from his own back, and tore it into
strips, to bandage up his shattered arm. In the meanwhile we were
waiting for the arrival of Captains Trowbridge and Waller with another
squadron of boats. They however missed the mole head, but though some
landed to the southward of it, in consequence of the heavy surf breaking
on the shore, others put back. Captain Trowbridge, not finding the
Admiral and the other officers he expected to meet there, sent a
sergeant to summon the Citadel to surrender. The poor fellow did not
return, having probably been shot. The scaling-ladders had also been
lost in the surf. When morning broke we alto