bayonets, the last not more than six hundred. In addition to
these, there were two officers of engineers, a brigade of
artillery, a detachment of sappers and miners, a party of
artillery drivers, with a due proportion of officers belonging to
the Medical and Commissariat departments. The whole together
could not be computed at more than two thousand five hundred men,
if indeed it amounted to so great a number; and was placed under
the command of Major-General Ross, a very gallant and experienced
officer.

The fleet, again, consisted of the Royal Oak, of 74 guns, bearing
the flag of Rear-Admiral Malcolm; the Diadem and Dictator, two
sixty-fours, armed en flute; the Pomone, Menelaus, Trave, Weser,
and Thames, frigates, the three last armed in the same manner as
the Diadem and Dictator; the Meteor and Devastation,
bomb-vessels; together with one or two gun-brigs, making in all a
squadron of eleven or twelve ships of war, with several
storeships and transports.

On board the Royal Oak were embarked the General, with his staff,
and the artillery; the Trave and Weser were filled with the 4th;
the 44th were divided between the Dictator and the Thames, in the
first of which ships were also the engineers; the 85th occupied
the Diadem; and the rest were scattered through the fleet, partly
in the men-of-war and partly in the transports.

As soon as the troops, with all their baggage, were finally
settled in the vessels allotted for their accommodation, the
signal was made to weigh; but the wind being adverse, and the
navigation of the Garonne far from simple, it could not be