5.

Sir: Last night at 12 o'clock, the enemy precipitately decamped,
and returned to their boats, leaving behind them, under medical
attendance, eighty of his wounded, including two officers, 14
pieces of his heavy artillery, and a quantity of shot, having
destroyed much of his powder. Such was the situation of the
ground he abandoned, and of that through which he retired,
protected by canals, redoubts, entrenchments and swamps on his
right, and the river on his left, that I could not, without
encountering a risk which true policy did not seem to require, or
to authorize, attempt to annoy him much on his retreat. We took
only eight prisoners.

Whether it is the purpose of the enemy to abandon the expedition
altogether, or renew his efforts at some other point, I do not
pretend to determine with positiveness. In my own mind, however,
there is but little doubt that his last exertions have been made
in this quarter, at any rate for the present season, and by the
next I hope we shall be fully prepared for him. In this belief I
am strengthened not only by the prodigious loss he has sustained
at the position he has just quitted, but by the failure of his
fleet to pass Fort St. Philip.

His loss on this ground, since the debarkation of his troops, as
stated by the last prisoners and deserters, and as confirmed by
many additional circumstances, must have exceeded four thousand;
and was greater in the action of the 8th than was estimated, from
the most correct data then in his possession, by the
inspector-general, whose report has been forwarded to you. We
succeeded, on the 8th, in getting from the enemy about 1000 stand
of arms of various descriptions.

Since the action of the 8th, the enemy has been allowed very
little respite; my artillery from both sides of the river being
constantly employed, till the night, and indeed until the hour of
their retreat, in annoying them. No doubt they thought it quite
time to quit a position in which so little rest could be found.

I am advised by Major Overton, who commanded at Fort St. Philip,
in a letter of the 18th, that the enemy having bombarded his fort
for 8 or 9 days from 13-inch mortars without effect, had, on the
morning of that day, retired. I have little doubt that he would
have been abl