smanagement of its garrison, and during the state of
panic of the Portuguese Trouin landed about four thousand men, erecting a
battery on an island within easy cannon-shot of the city, and occupying a
range of hills to the left which gave him command of that section of the
place. The governor with his troops looked on from a distance while the
French pillaged the adjoining suburb, destitute of tactics that any one
could discover unless he proposed to let the French enter the streets and
then attack them from the houses.

It was in this way they had been defeated the year before, but Trouin was
too old a soldier to be caught in such a trap. He erected batteries on the
surrounding hill-slopes till the town was commanded on three sides, while
the governor kept the bulk of his forces at a distance, waiting for no one
knew what. Trouin had been permitted, with scarcely a blow in defence, to
make himself master of the situation, and he needed only to get his guns
in place to be able to batter the town to the dust.

He now sent a demand to the governor to surrender, saying that he had been
sent by the king of France to take revenge for the murder of Duclerc and
the inhuman slaughter of his men. De Castro answered that his duty to his
king would not permit him to surrender, and sought to show that the French
had been honorably killed in battle and Duclerc murdered by an assassin
beyond his control.

A poor affair of a governor De Castro proved, and the French were
permitted to go on with their works almost unmolested, the Portuguese
occupying hill forts, the fire from which did little harm to the enemy.
Trouin had already begun the bombardment of the city, and on receiving the
governor's answer he kept his guns at work all night. At the same time
there raged a tropical storm of great violence, accompanied by thunders
that drowned the roar of the guns, the frightful combination throwing the
people into such a state that they all fled in blind terror, the troops in
the town with them. In the morning, when Trouin was ready to launch his
storming parties, word was brought him that the city was deserted and lay
at his mercy. Some of the richest magazines had been set on fire by the
governor's order, but otherwise the rich city was abandoned, with all its
wealth, to the French.

Of the relics of Duclerc's force, about five hundred remained alive in the
city. These do not seem to have been then in prison, but living at large,
and t