than
necessary,--held fast their muskets,--and, without stirring from the
gunnels of the boat, round which they had been stationed, went down in
as good order as could be expected, each man at his post, with his
bayonet fixed. The sailors, not being either so heavily caparisoned or
so well drilled, were guilty of a _sauve qui peut_, and were picked up
by other boats. The officer of the regiment stuck to his men, and it is
to be hoped that he marched the whole of his brave detachment to heaven,
as he often had before to church. But we must leave the troops to form
on the beach as well as they can, and the enemy's shot will permit, and
retire on board.

The commodore's arrangement had been punctually complied with. The
ships that were directed to cover the landing of the troops, knocked
down many of the enemy, and not a great many more of our own men. The
stations of the other ships were taken with a precision deserving of the
highest encomiums; and there is no doubt, that, had not the enemy had
the advantage of stone walls, they must have had the worst of it, and
would have been well beaten.

The commodore himself, of course, took the post of honour. Anchored
with springs on his cables, he alternately engaged a heavy battery on
his starboard bows, a much heavier, backed by a citadel, throwing
shells, on his beam, and a masked battery on his quarter, which he had
not reckoned upon. The latter was rather annoying, and the citadel
threw shells with most disagreeable precision. He had almost as much to
do as Lord Exmouth at Algiers, although the result was not so fortunate.

A ship engaging at anchor, with very little wind, and that wind lulled
by the percussion of the air from the report of the guns, as it always
is, has the disadvantage of not being able to disengage herself of the
smoke, which rapidly accumulates and stagnates as it were between the
decks. Under these circumstances you repeatedly hear the order passed
upon the main and lower deck of a line-of-battle ship, to point the guns
two points abaft the beam, point-blank, and so on. In fact, they are as
much in the dark as to the external objects, as if they were
blindfolded; and the only comfort to be derived from this serious
inconvenience, is, that every man is so isolated from his neighbour that
he is not put in mind of his own danger by witnessing the death of those
around him, for they may fall three or four feet from him without his
perceiving i