When the boats returned, we recommenced our fire with renewed vigour;
occasionally a flag-staff was knocked down, a fact which was always
announced with a cheer, each captain of a gun believing himself to be the
faithful marksman. The Algerine squadron now began, as it were, to follow
the motions of the outer frigate; the rockets had taken effect, and they
all burned merrily together. A hot shot, about this time, struck a
powder-box, on which was sitting the powder-boy, he, poor fellow, was
blown up, and another near him was dreadfully scorched.
Through the intervals of smoke, the sad devastation in the enemy's works
was made visible; the whole of the mole head, near the Queen Charlotte,
was a ruin, and the guns were consequently silenced; but we were not so
fortunate with the Fish-market; the guns there still annoyed us, and ours
seemed to make no impression. A battery in the upper angle of the town
was also untouched, and we were so much under it, that the shot actually
came through our decks, without touching the bulwarks, and we could not
elevate our guns sufficiently to check them.
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