the whole apparatus was
landed. For the next hour the efforts of both sides were unremitted. One
of the brigs went to the assistance of the admiral, while the other
endeavoured to silence the gun, which was too securely placed, however,
to mind her broadsides. One shot hulling her, soon drove her to leeward;
after which, all the attention of the pirates was bestowed on their
ship.

The admiral, beyond all doubt, was very awkwardly placed. He had the
whole width of the shoal to leeward of him, could only get off by
working directly in the face of the fire, and had gone on with seven
knots way on his ship. The bottom was a soft mud; and the colonists knew
that nothing but anchors laid to windward, with a heavy strain and a
good deal of lightening, would ever take that vessel out of her soft
berth. Of this fact the pirates themselves soon began to be convinced,
for they were seen pumping out their water. As for the brigs, they were
by no means well handled. Instead of closing with the battery, and
silencing the gun, as they might have done, they kept aloof, and even
rendered less assistance to the ship than was in their power. In point
of fact, they were in confusion, and manifested that want of order and
submission to authority, as well as self-devotion, that would have been
shown among men in an honest service: guilt paralysed their efforts,
rendering them timid and distrustful.

After near two hours of cannonading, during which the colonists had
done the pirates a good deal of damage, and the pirates literally had
not injured the colonists at all, the governor was ready with his hot
shot, which he had brought to something more than a red heat. The gun
was loaded with great care, and fired, after having been deliberately
pointed by the governor himself. The ship was hulled, and a trifling
explosion followed on board. That shot materially added to the confusion
among the pirates, and it was immediately followed by another, which
struck, also. It was now so apparent that confusion prevailed among the
pirates, that the governor would not take the time necessary to put in
the other hot shot, but he loaded and fired as fast as he could, in the
ordinary way.

In less than a quarter of an hour after the first hot shot was fired,
smoke poured out of the admiral's main-deck ports; and, two minutes
later, it was succeeded by flames.

From that moment the result of the conflict was no longer doubtful. The
pirates, among whom g