magazines of the
fort before we entered it, which killed and wounded more than fifty of the
enemy. About ninety of the enemy were killed and more than twenty wounded.
We had forty-six killed and wounded; among the number were eleven
officers. We found in the harbour a frigate of thirty-six guns and a
corvette fitted up as a receiving ship for the wounded. Several merchant
ships, loading with sugar when we first entered the bay, had relanded
their cargoes. The warehouses were more than half filled with sugar, rum
and coffee. A party of seamen were immediately employed to load the
shipping.

The town had suffered considerably from the shells and shot. Some of the
houses were in ruins and the public buildings much damaged, particularly
those in the dockyard.

We now encamped before and laid siege to the principal Republican fort,
commanded by the French General Rochambeau. It had before been called
"Fort Bourbon," and had a garrison of 3,000 men.(3)

We had already taken one of its principal redoubts within gunshot of it
and Fort Royale. A party of sailors who had the management of it under a
lieutenant and three midshipmen, christened it by a name that would shock
ladies' ears. When the enemy's shot fired at them were not too deeply
entrenched in the ground, they dug them up and returned them, the middies
first writing on them in chalk the names of those quack doctors who sold
pills as a remedy for all complaints.

For the first fourteen days we all appeared to enjoy the novelty of our
situation, although it was by no means an enviable one, as the shot and
shell were flying about us in every direction, and it was no joke to
scamper away from a bursting shell just as we had sat down to dinner. Some
were almost every day sent to "Kingdom come" sooner than they expected.
Our camp on the plain before the enemy's fort was picturesque enough; the
officers only had tents or marquees, the sailors and soldiers made the
most of their blankets. However, except when the dew fell heavily at
night, these were quite sufficient. A few only suffered who were not of
the strongest, and they were attacked by a low fever.

We had been before this fortress nearly three weeks, and were impatient to
storm it, as what with casualties and the enemy's shot we were losing the
number of our mess faster than we liked, and, although our fire had been
incessant, we had not been able to effect a breach of any considerable
consequence. To give more f