but the bullet rebounded and struck him on the nose; upon which he ordered
the drums to beat a retreat, and the soldiers got back to the boats,
leaving a small handful of seamen to prosecute the attack. These, in turn,
seeing the hopelessness of any further attempts, retreated to their boats,
and rowed off under a heavy fire, leaving many wounded to be massacred by
the enemy. It was the old story, repeated so often on these occasions; a
badly planned attack carried out half-heartedly by undisciplined men,
under one or two resolute leaders; as soon as the leaders were disabled,
the rest retreated with more or less loss.

A desultory bombardment was continued for some days, and some shots were
fired against Colaba; but Kennery was now well provided with ammunition,
and could return two shots for every one fired by the Bombay squadron. On
the 11th, Angria sent a flag of truce to offer terms, which were rejected.
On the 14th, Boone returned to Bombay in the _Dartmouth_, seeing that
nothing more could be effected, and, on the 24th, the whole squadron made
sail for Bombay, after exhausting all their ammunition. Their return seems
to have been hastened by the appearance of Angria's fleet from Gheriah,
which had Bombay for a time at its mercy.

The failure of the attack on Kennery, under his own eyes, taught Boone
that, without some assistance from England, he could hope to accomplish
little against Angria, whose ships now lay off the harbour, making it
difficult for trading vessels to go in or out. Three times the _Morrice_
got under way, and three times had to return, before she could start on
her return voyage to Europe. In consequence of Boone's representations,
the Directors sent out the _St. George_, a sixty-gun ship, to act as a
guardship for the harbour. Her arrival only served to show the
incompetency of many of the Company's naval officers at that time. In
laying the ship on shore to scour its bottom after the voyage from England,