, the entire destruction of
their fleet and merchant vessels anchored within the mole and in the
harbor, had a depressing effect upon the inhabitants, and probably did
more than the injuries received by the batteries in securing an
honorable conclusion to the treaty. We know very well that these
batteries, though much injured, _were not silenced_ when Lord Exmouth
took advantage of the land breeze and sailed beyond their reach. The
ships retired--1st, because they had become much injured, and their
ammunition nearly exhausted; 2d, in order to escape from a position so
hazardous in case of a storm; and 3d, to get beyond the reach of the
Algerine batteries. Lord Exmouth himself gives these as his reasons for
the retreat, and says, "the land wind saved me many a gallant fellow."
And Vice-admiral Von de Capellan, in his report of the battle, gives the
same opinion: "_in this retreat_" says he, "which, from want of wind and
the damage suffered in the rigging, was very slow, _the ships had still
to suffer much from the new-opened and redoubled fire of the enemy's
batteries_; at last, the land breeze springing up," &c. An English
officer, who took part in this affair, says: "It was well for us that
the land wind came off, or we should never have got out; and God knows
what would have been our fate, had we remained all night."

The motives of the retreat cannot, therefore, be doubted. Had the Arabs
set themselves zealously at work, during the night, to prepare for a new
contest, by remounting their guns, and placing others behind the ruins
of those batteries which had fallen,--in other words, had the works now
been placed in hands as skilful and experienced as the English, the
contest would have been far from ended. But (to use the words of the
Board of Defence) Lord Exmouth relied on the effects produced on the
people by his dreadful cannonade; and the result proves that he was
right. His anxiety to clear the vessels from the contest shows that
there was a power still unconquered, which he thought it better to leave
to be restrained by the suffering population of the city, than to keep
in a state of exasperation and activity by his presence. What was this
power but an unsubdued energy in the batteries?

The true solution of the question is, then, not so much the amount of
injury done on the one side or the other--particularly as there was on
one side a city to suffer as well as the batteries--as the relative
efficiency of the