Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/421

 I'lIE 17TJI OK OCTOIJKi;. 39l one may say, somewliat languid. The Ifoduey chap, XTTT was also exposed to a raking though distant fire 1_ from Fort Alexander and other batteries on the south of the roadstead. The fire from these was not ill directed; but, considering the numbers of shot hurled into the ship from that quarter, the harm they did was strangely small. Like all the other ships which took part with Lyons, the Eod- ney was more or less under the fire of those cliff batteries which had done so much service to the Eussians ; but she did not receive from them a harm bearing near proportion to that which they had inflicted upon otlier ships. Indeed it may be said generally of every ship constituting the in-shore squadron or acting in company with it, that the nearer she lay to Eort Constantino, the greater was the impunity she enjoyed. So large a part of the Kodney's crew were on shore taking part in the land cannonade, that Captain Graham did not engage with his upper- deck guns ; but the ship had a very good crew, and the fire Avhich she long maintained from her main and lower decks was carefully directed. Her firing was not in broadsides. It seems that the ship's company were not in the least discomposed by the circumstance of being aground under the guns of Sebastopol. But whilst the Rodney, hard at work with her xiicAga- starboard batteries, was thus lying fast on the sanspareii, shoal in a berth which contented her crew, Lyons now hauling at length determined to haul off. The Agamem-