e." He professed, and probably felt, entire
confidence in the result. Fifty-seven boats were detailed for the
attack. They were in four divisions, each under a commander; Edward
Parker having one. Each division was to advance in two columns, the
boats of which were secured one to another by tow-ropes; a precaution
invaluable to keep them together, though rendering progress slower.
The points in the enemy's line which each division was to make for
were clearly specified, and special boats told off and fitted to tow
out any vessels that were captured. Simultaneous with this onslaught,
a division of howitzer flatboats was to throw shot into the port.

At half-past eleven on the night of August 15th, the boats, which had
assembled alongside the flag-frigate "Medusa," shoved off together;
but the distance which they had to pull, with the strong, uncertain
currents, separated them; and, as so often happens in concerted
movements, attacks intended to be simultaneous were made
disconnectedly, while the French were fully prepared. The first
division of the British arrived at half-past twelve, and after a
desperate struggle was beaten off, Commander Parker being mortally
wounded. Two other divisions came up later, while the fourth lost its
way altogether. The affair was an entire failure, except so far as to
show that the enemy would be met on their own shores, rather than on
those of Great Britain. The British loss was forty-four killed, and
one hundred and twenty-eight wounded.

Nelson returned to the Downs, bitterly grieved, but not greatly
discouraged. The mishap, he said, was due to the boats not arriving at
the same moment; and that, he knew, was caused by conditions of
currents, which would ever prevent the dull flatboats of the enemy
moving in a concert that the cutters of ships of war had not attained.
"The craft which I have seen," he wrote, "I do not think it possible
to _row_ to England; and sail they cannot." As yet, however, he had
not visited Flushing, and he felt it necessary to satisfy himself on
that point. On the 24th of August, taking some pilots with him, he
went across and inspected the ground, where the officer in charge of
the British observing squadron was confident something might be
effected. Nelson, however, decided otherwise. "I cannot but admire
Captain Owen's zeal in his anxious desire to get at the enemy, but I
am afraid it has made him overleap sand-banks and tides, and laid him
aboard the enemy