Page:The Adventures Of A Revolutionary Soldier.pdf/68

66 I will here just mention one thing which will show the apathy of our people at this time. We had, as I mentioned before, a thirty-two pound cannon in the fort, but had not a single shot for it; the British also had one in their battery upon the Hospital-point, which, as I said before, raked the fort; or rather it was so fixed as to rake the parade in front of the barracks, the only place we could pass up and down the fort. The Artillery officers offered a gill of rum for each shot, fired from that piece, which the soldiers would procure. I have seen from twenty to fifty men standing on the parade waiting with impatience the coming of the shot, which would often be seized before its motion had fully ceased and conveyed off to our gun to be sent back again to its former owners. When the lucky fellow who had caught it had swallowed his rum, he would return to wait for another, exulting that he had been more lucky or more dexterous than his fellows.

What little provisions we had was cooked by the invalids in our camp and brought to the island in old flour barrels; it was mostly corned beef and hard bread, but it was not much trouble to cook or fetch what we had.

We continued here suffering cold, hunger and other miseries, till the fourteenth day of November; on that day, at the dawn, we discovered six ships of the line, all sixty-fours, a frigate of thirty-six guns and a gally in a line just below the Chevaux-de-frise; a twenty-four gun ship, (being an old ship cut down,) her guns said to be all brass twenty-four pounders, and a sloop of six guns in company with her, both within pistol shot of the fort, on the western side. We immediately opened our batteries upon them, but they appeared to take very little notice of us; we heated some shot, but by mistake twenty-four pound shot were heated instead of eighteen, which was the calibre of the guns in that part of the fort. The enemy soon began their firing upon us, and there was music indeed. The soldiers were all ordered to take their posts at the palisadoes, which they were ordered to defend to the last extremity, as it was expected the British would land under the fire of their cannon and attempt to storm the fort. The cannonade was severe, as well it might be, six sixty-four gun ships, a thirty-six gun frigate, a twenty-four gun ship, a gally and a sloop of six guns,