n the morning of the 17th, 400
were embarked still further to support it.

When the firing at Balaguier ceased, we remained in anxious
suspense as to the event, till a little before daylight, when a
new scene opened by an attack on all our posts on Mt. Pharon.
The enemy were repulsed on the east side, where was our
principal force of about 700 men, commanded by a most
distinguished officer, the Piedmontese Colonel, de Jermagnan,
whose loss we deeply lament; but on the back of the
mountain--near 1,800 feet high, steep, rocky, deemed almost
inaccessible, and which we had laboured much to make so--they
found means once more to penetrate between our posts, which
occupied an extent of above two miles, guarded by about 450 men;
and in a very short space of time we saw that with great numbers
they crowned all that side of the mountain which overlooks the
town.

In this despatch David Dundas proclaimed his own incompetence. For some
time it had been obvious that the Republicans were about to attack Fort
Mulgrave, which everybody knew to be essential to the defence of the
fleet. Yet he took no steps to strengthen this "temporary post" so that
it might resist a determined attack. He also entrusted one half of the
battery to the Spaniards whom he had declared to be "everything that is
bad." On his own showing, as many as 2,500 allied troops were near at
hand on the Balaguier or Eguilette heights to act as supports, before
Bonaparte's attack began; and 400 more were sent thither soon
afterwards. A spirited attack by those troops on the victors at Fort
Mulgrave on its blind side might have retrieved the day; but a panic
seized part of the supports, whom Sidney Smith describes as rushing like
swine towards the sea though the enemy was only in a condition to attack
"faintly." Hood was furious at this spiritless acceptance of defeat; and
in his despatch to Whitehall censured the troops for not making a timely
effort;[270] but as David Dundas had all along opined that the place was
untenable, he decided to hold a council of war. It registered the wishes
of the desponding chief. The officers decided that it was impossible
either to retake the two positions lost, or to establish a post on the
outer, or Cepet, peninsula, capable of protecting the roadstead from the
cross fires which the French would pour in from the Balaguier and Cape
Brun promontories.

During the next three