rom the admiral's
battering ship and, by midnight, she was completely in flames. The
light assisted our gunners--who were able to lay their cannon with
as much accuracy as during the daytime--and the whole Rock was
illuminated by the flames. These presently burst out, vigorously,
from the next ship and, between three and four o'clock, points of
light appeared upon six of the other hulks.

At three o'clock Brigadier Curtis--who commanded the Naval Brigade
encamped at Europa Point--finding that the sea had gone down,
manned the gunboats and, rowing out for some distance, opened a
heavy flanking fire upon the battering ships; compelling the boats
that were lying in shelter behind them to retire. As the day broke
he captured two of the enemy's launches and, finding from the
prisoners that there were still numbers of men on board the hulks,
rowed out to rescue them. While he was employed at this work, at
five o'clock, one of the battering ships to the northward blew up,
with a tremendous explosion and, a quarter of an hour later,
another in the centre of the line also blew up. The wreck was
scattered over a wide extent of water.

One of the gunboats was sunk, and another seriously injured; and
the Brigadier, fearing other explosions, ordered the boats to draw
off towards the town. On the way, however, he visited two of the
other burning ships; and rescued some more of those left
behind--landing, in all, nine officers, two priests, and three
hundred and thirty-four soldiers and seamen. Besides these, one
officer and eleven Frenchmen had floated ashore, the evening
before, on the shattered fragments of a launch.

While the boats in the navy were thus endeavouring to save their
foes, the land batteries--which had ceased firing on the previous
evening--again opened on the garrison; but as, from some of the
camps, the boats could be perceived at their humane work, orders
were despatched to the batteries to cease fire; and a dead silence
succeeded the din that had gone on for nearly twenty-four hours.

Of the six battering ships still in flames, three blew up before
eleven o'clock. The other three burned to the water's edge--the
magazines having been drowned, by the Spaniards, before they left
the ships in their boats. The garrison hoped that the two remaining
battering ships might be saved, to be sent home as trophies of the
victory but, about noon, one of them suddenly burst into flames,
and presently blew up. The other wa