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At a time when every one else despaired of saving stores, cannon, provisions, or property of any kind, and a privateer was moored across the mole-head to prevent all boats from passing, he sent word to the committee, that if the slightest opposition were made to the embarkment and removal of British property, he would batter the town down.
This admirable disposition of the force seemed to inspire the men with additional confidence, if such were possible, but ere long the dense smoke rendered everything invisible beyond a few yards' distance from the actors in the tremendous fight. In a few minutes after opening fire, the Queen Charlotte had reduced the fortifications on the mole-head to ruins.
A four-oared boat shot out from the mole-head as if to intercept this solitary rower, and a short but inspiriting chase ensued. It was seen that at first the Arab paid no attention whatever to the boat in pursuit, but kept up the slow regular stroke of one who felt quite unconcerned and at his ease.
By midday the ships, of which three were of the line, were anchored close to the mole-head, abreast the town, and the municipality was notified that any opposition to the removal of the vessels and stores would be followed by instant bombardment. Everything yielded to the threat, made by a man whose determined character left no doubt that it would be carried into execution.
She lay within short range of the guns on the castle, on the mole-head, and in the New Fort; and close aboard rode three Tripolitan cruisers and twenty gun-boats and galleys. To meet and overcome this force Decatur had a few small guns and seventy men, but these were hearts of oak, tried in many a desperate undertaking, and burning now to redeem their country's honour.
"Yes, Madam Budd, yes; we was steering for a Mediterranean port, intending to clear a mole-head, when a sea took us under the larboard-quarter, gave us such a sheer to-port as sent our cat-head ag'in a spile, and raked away the chain-plates of the top-mast back-stays, bringing down all the forrard hamper about our ears."
Perhaps there was no exaggeration in the praise; for the destruction occasioned by her first broadside, as she lay flanking the Mole, must have contributed much to protect the ships which had not yet reached their stations; and the havoc she inflicted by a cannonade of nine hours must have been great indeed, since her fire could destroy the fortifications on the Mole-head in a few minutes.
But now it sounded again, and this time the sound come in little waves over the water, the same vibrating, subdued whistle that long-tailed ducks make when they rise; it seemed alive. The fog-horn answered it out in the fairway, and the bell in at the mole-head; then the horn once more, and the steam-whistle in the distance.
Upon the expiration of that term and on the return of the flag of truce without an answer, he anchored his flagship just half a cable's length from the mole head at the entrance of the harbour, so that her starboard broadside flanked all the batteries from the mole-head to the lighthouse.
Next day the admiral gave orders for cannonading the town; perceiving that the enemy were driven from their fortifications at the south mole-head, he commanded captain Whi-taker to arm all the boats, and assault that quarter. The captains Hicks and Juniper, who happened to be nearest the mole, immediately manned their pinnaces, and entered the fortifications sword in hand.
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