by John Marshall

“ Above 12,000 French troops reinforced the already enormous army. The Count D’Artois, Duc de Bourbon, and many others of the most distinguished nobility of France, were assembled in the allied camp, in order to partake in the glory which was expected to be derived from so illustrious an enterprise as the reduction of this fortress. Besides the combined fleet, forty gunboats with heavy cannon, as many bomb-vessels, with each a twelve-inch mortar, and five large bomb-ketches on the usual construction, were destined to second the powerful efforts of the battering ships ”

“ Several of the enemy’s boats were sunk before they submitted to this necessity; in one of these were fourscore men, who were all drowned excepting an officer and twelve of them, who floated on the wreck under the walls, and were taken up by the garrison. At day-light two Spanish feluccas, which had not escaped, submitted upon a shot being fired from a gun-boat, which killed some of their men. Nothing can exceed the horrors of the scene which now appeared: numbers of men were seen in the midst of the. flames, imploring relief; others floating on pieces of timber ”

“ The garrison at the same time opened a tremendous fire; the red hot shot were thrown with such precision, that about two o’clock in the afternoon smoke was seen to issue from the Spanish Admiral, and another ship; and men were perceived pouring water into the holes, endeavouring to extinguish the fire. Their efforts proved ineffectual: by one o’clock in the morning those two ships were in flames, and seven more took fire in succession. ”