to the castle. The troops then advanced towards the fortress, which is
described to have had walls fourteen feet thick, pierced with loop
holes, and only one entrance through a small gate, well cased with iron
bars and bolts, in the strongest manner. With a howitzer taken for the
occasion, it was intended to have blown this gate open, and to have
taken the place by storm; but on reaching it while the ranks opened, and
the men sought to surround the castle to seek for some other entrance at
the same time, they were picked off so rapidly and unexpectedly from the
loop holes above, that a general flight took place, the howitzer was
abandoned, even before it had been fired, and both the officers and the
troops sought shelter by lying down behind the ridges of sand and little
hillocks immediately underneath the castle walls. An Irish officer,
jumping up from his hiding place, and calling on some of his comrades to
follow him in an attempt to rescue the howitzer, was killed in the
enterprise. Such others as even raised their heads to look around them,
were picked off by the musketry from above; and the whole of the troops
lay therefore hidden in this way, until the darkness of the night
favored their escape to the beach, where they embarked after sunset, the
enemy having made no sally on them from the fort. A second summons was
sent to the chief in the castle, threatening to bombard the town from a
nearer anchorage if he did not submit, and no quarter afterwards shown.
With the dawn of morning, all eyes were directed to the fortress, when,
to the surprise of the whole squadron, a man was seen waving the British
Union flag on the summit of its walls. It was lieutenant Hall, who
commanded the Fury which was one of the vessels nearest the shore.
During the night he had gone on shore alone, taking an union-jack in his
hand, and advanced singly to the castle gate. The fortress had already
been abandoned by the greater number of the inhabitants, but some few
still remained there. These fled at the approach of an individual
supposing him to be the herald of those who were to follow. Be this as