ation. Between nine and ten they anchored, and the general
fire at once began. The besieged replied with equal fury. The
battering-ships seem in the main, and for some hours, to have
justified the hopes formed of them; cold shot glanced or failed to get
through their sides, while the self-acting apparatus for extinguishing
fires balked the hot shot.

About two o'clock, however, smoke was seen to issue from the ship of
the commander-in-chief, and though controlled for some time, the fire
continued to gain. The same misfortune befell others; by evening, the
fire of the besieged gained a marked superiority, and by one o'clock
in the morning the greater part of the battering-ships were in flames.
Their distress was increased by the action of the naval officer
commanding the English gunboats, who now took post upon the flank of
the line and raked it effectually,--a service which the Spanish
gunboats should have prevented. In the end, nine of the ten blew up at
their anchors, with a loss estimated at fifteen hundred men, four
hundred being saved from the midst of the fire by the English seamen.
The tenth ship was boarded and burned by the English boats. The hopes
of the assailants perished with the failure of the battering-ships.

There remained only the hope of starving out the garrison. To this end
the allied fleets now gave themselves. It was known that Lord Howe was
on his way out with a great fleet, numbering thirty-four
ships-of-the-line, besides supply vessels. On the 10th of October a
violent westerly gale injured the combined ships, driving one ashore
under the batteries of Gibraltar, where she was surrendered. The next
day Howe's force came in sight, and the transports had a fine chance
to make the anchorage, which, through carelessness, was missed by all
but four. The rest, with the men-of-war, drove eastward into the
Mediterranean. The allies followed on the 13th; but though thus placed
between the port and the relieving force, and not encumbered, like the
latter, with supply-ships, they yet contrived to let the transports,
with scarcely an exception, slip in and anchor safely. Not only
provisions and ammunition, but also bodies of troops carried by the
ships-of-war, were landed without molestation. On the 19th the English
fleet repassed the straits with an easterly wind, having within a
week's time fulfilled its mission, and made Gibraltar safe for another
year. The allied fleet followed, and on the 20th an acti