Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v3p1.djvu/145

 members – Blake, Cismar, and Agar; – the former of whom landed at Cadiz from the Druid frigate, Captain Thomas Searle, and assumed the chief military command in the island, Sept. 27th, 1810.

On the following day a pestilential fever broke out, and the communication between the British squadron and the shore was necessarily suspended. On the 30th of the same month, a fascine battery in advance of the French lines, near Chiclana, was attacked by a body of Spaniards, who completely surprised the enemy, spiked their guns, and gave no quarter.

On the 2d of October, a night attack by the bombs, gun-vessels, armed launches, and rocket-boats, produced a sensible effect on Fort Santa-Catalina, which was set on fire in two or three places; and, next morning, it was observed that the walls thereof had suffered greatly from the bombardment, and a subsequent explosion. This service was ably conducted by Captain James Sanders, of the Atlas 74. On the 3d, the Mors-aut-Gloria was twice struck by shot, but sustained little damage. On the 5th, she joined in an attack on Forts Napoleon and Luis; the former a strong earth battery near Matagorda, mounting sixteen heavy guns and four mortars; the latter occupying a small muddy point of the Trocadero island, and mounting fourteen guns, two mortars, and two howitzers, on the side next to Puntales, and about the same number of cannon to fire on the inner harbour. In the night of the 18th, Captain Fellowes made a spirited attack on a French privateer under the fortifications at Rota. On the 28th, the Camperdown gun-vessel, commanded by Lieutenant Style, struck on Los Corrales, a reef of rocks between Cadiz and Puntales, when a midshipman and fourteen of her crew miserably perished.

Early on the morning of the first of November, a French gun-vessel from San-Lucar was observed lying aground at the entrance of the Rio-Guadalete, where she was boarded and destroyed by the boats employed in rowing guard, under Captain John Sprat Rainier, of the Norge 74. Seven more of the Guadalquivir flotilla were at the same time attacked by the British gun-boats; but having got within the bar 