Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 1.djvu/208

 would laugh and joke with each other, declare the truce at an end, then load their muskets, and take aim, with the same indifference, as regarded the object, as if they had. been perfect strangers: but, as I before observed, fighting is a trade.

From Rosas we proceeded to join the admiral off Toulon; and being informed that a battery of six brass guns, in the port of Silva, would be in possession of the French.in a few hours, we ran in, and anchored within pistol-shot of it. We lashed blocks to our lower mast-heads, rove hawsers through them, sent the ends on shore, made them fast to the guns, and hove off three of them, one after another, by the capstan; and had the end of the hauser on shore, ready for the others, when our marine videts were surprised by the French, driven in, and retreated to the beach with the loss of one man taken prisoner.

Not having sufficient force on shore to resist them, we're-embarked our party, and the French,