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Updated: June 13, 2025
At length I learned from Captain Stewart that all the guns had been spiked, that rat-tail files had been sent up for the purpose from one of the gunboats, with orders to spike the guns. I replied that no such orders had been given by me, that the spiking of the guns should have been the last thing done."
"What prisoners?" demanded Stuart, shortly. Then Oconostota explained, with his blandest circumlocutions, that, partly as a check upon his dear brother's good faith, bound as he was by his oath of fidelity to the English government, and he almost choked with the relish of his derision every time he mentioned it, and to make sure that he should handle the guns properly, and fire them with due effect, not aiming them wildly, so that the balls might fly over the fort, or fall short, not spiking the guns, or otherwise demolishing them, all of which his great knowledge of the arm rendered possible, and the ignorance of the poor red man unpreventable, they had determined to take with them the remnant of the garrison, their lives to be pledges of his good conduct and effective marksmanship; and if at last his earnest and sincere efforts should prove unavailing, and the commandant should continue to hold out and refuse to surrender when finally summoned, these, the countrymen and fellow-soldiers of that officer, should be singly tortured and burned before his eyes, within full sight and hearing of Fort Prince George.
Instantly, he sent a detachment, which captured the battery and spiked the guns. Then Captain Porter landed, and, after spiking another battery, made his way to the town. By and by the alcalde and captain of the port appeared and made such profuse and humble apologies that the officer could not refuse to accept them, and returned to his ship.
Why, he's like a wolf!" Bridewell chuckled with superior knowledge. "He's ate enough for three," he admitted, "but he's worked enough for six besides, most of his wages come in food. But work? I never seen anything like it! He handled more timbers than a dozen. When it come to spiking them in place he seen me swinging that twelve-pound sledge and near breaking my back.
Five sorties were made during the siege by the British, for the purpose of destroying buildings which commanded the intrenchments, and of spiking guns. On all these occasions, both officers and men of the 32nd Regiment particularly distinguished themselves.
There was an angry red glare on the western horizon, though the light was beginning to fade, when he reached the end of the new line and found a crowd of men distributing piles of gravel and spiking down the rails which ran back, gleaming in the sunset, lurid, straight and level, across the expanse of grass, until they were lost in the shadowy mass of a bluff.
Through the pine woods with their softly moving shadows and splendid aisles, out between the cypresses and rocky beach, wound the stately cavalcade, their voices rising above the sociable converse of the seals and the screeching of the seagulls spiking the rocks where the waves fought and foamed.
"Yes, sir," said I, "I believe I could. At all events, I'll undertake to silence the battery; and if care and patience will enable me to do so without alarming the frigate, it shall be done." "Very well, then," said the skipper; "you shall conduct the enterprise; and remember that a surprise is eminently desirable, but that the spiking of the guns is an imperative necessity."
Moreover, I have been privileged to discuss with the Captain this very question of taking the ship up to the town, from which discussion arose my determination to make that chart; and my advice is, that we defer our attempt until to-morrow night, and that in the meantime I be permitted to return in the longboat to our former hiding-place, provided with hammers and nails for the spiking of the guns and such other necessaries as I may require, together with a crew of six of our best men.
Duchambon says that soon after the English landed, he got a letter from Thierry, the captain in command of the Royal Battery, advising that the cannon should be spiked and the works blown up. This is the Governor's official report. Thierry and his garrison came off in boats, after spiking the cannon in a hasty way, without stopping to knock off the trunnions or burn the carriages.
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