ind was
fair, though blowing hard, we soon neared the estimated position
of the advanced French ships, for it was too dark to discern them.
Judging our distance, therefore, as well as we could, with regard to
the time the fuse was calculated to burn, the crew of four men entered
the gig, under the direction of Lieut. Bissel, whilst I kindled the
portfires, and then, descending into the boat, urged the men to pull
for their lives, which they did with a will, though, as wind and sea
were strong against us, without making the expected progress.

"To our consternation, the fuses, which had been constructed to burn
fifteen minutes, lasted little more than half that time, when the
vessel blew up, filling the air with shells, grenades, and rockets;
whilst the downward and lateral force of the explosion raised
a solitary mountain of water, from the breaking of which in all
directions our little boat narrowly escaped being swamped. The
explosion-vessel did her work well, the effect constituting one of the
grandest artificial spectacles imaginable. For a moment, the sky was
red with the lurid glare arising from the simultaneous ignition of
fifteen hundred barrels of powder. On this gigantic flash subsiding,
the air seemed alive with shells, grenades, rockets, and masses of
timber, the wreck of the shattered vessel. The sea was convulsed as
by an earthquake, rising, as has been said, in a huge wave, on whose
crest our boat was lifted like a cork, and as suddenly dropped into
a vast trough, out of which as it closed upon us with the rush of a
whirlpool, none expected to emerge. In a few minutes nothing but
a heavy rolling sea had to be encountered, all having again become
silence and darkness."

In spite of its bursting too soon, the explosion-vessel did excellent
work. The strong boom, composed of large spars bound by heavy chains,
and firmly anchored at various points in its length of more than a
mile, which was supposed to constitute an impassable barrier between
the English ships that were outside and the French ships locked behind
it, was broken in several parts. The enemy's ships were thoroughly
disorganised by the sudden and appalling occurrence of the explosion.
In their alarm and confusion, many of them fired into one another,
and all might have been easily destroyed had the first success of the
explosion-vessel been properly followed up. Unfortunately, however, on
returning to the _Imperieuse_, Lord Cochrane found that