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Read Ebook: An Account of the expedition to Carthagena with explanatory notes and observations by Knowles Charles Sir
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Ebook has 27 lines and 14318 words, and 1 pages
ACCOUNT
OF THE
EXPEDITION
CARTHAGENA,
WITH
EXPLANATORY NOTES
AND
OBSERVATIONS.
THE THIRD EDITION.
Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Dialect spellings, contractions and discrepancies have been retained. The footnotes are lettered from A to I, K to T and V to Z. Subsequent footnotes repeat the lettering sequence, beginning with an A.
ACCOUNT
OF THE
EXPEDITION
From the several Examinations of Deserters it appeared, the Number of the Enemy did not exceed four thousand, and daily Experience convinced us of the Goodness of their Engineers, Bombardiers, and Gunners, as Desertion and Cowardice convinced us of the Badness of others.
Footnotes
During the first three Days the Troops were ashore, they were employed in no one Thing, no not so much as to clear the Ground for their Encampment, but kept under Arms Night and Day whereas had they been instantly employed to have encamped and opened Ground in the Woods for that Purpose, they would have been shaded by the Trees, freed from the burning Heat of the Sand, and many of them preserved from the Enemy's Shot, that missed our Battery.
The Success of this Action may be said to have given the Army both Spirits and Pleasure as it freed them from the greatest Annoyance of their Camp, and gave them an Opportunity of working quietly on their Battery.
This grand Affair having taken up near a Fortnight in raising, and many more Men employed to work, than was necessary much Execution may be expected therefrom: But alas! the Engineers would by no Means outdo themselves; the Battery was constructed in a Wood! and no more Ground was cleared, than a Space necessary for so stupendous a Building . For so great Caution was used, that before the Wood in the Front of the Battery was cut down, it was a Doubt, whether any Guns could be brought to bear on the Castle; and as it was, no Guns could be brought to play on the Enemy's Shipping, although it was expected they would instantly fire on the Battery, and be capable of doing it the greatest Damage; and had not an Epaulment been thrown up at the East End, every Shot from the Ships must have raked the Battery, and destroyed Numbers of Men. The Army allowed the Tars behaved gallantly; for it must be remarked, they had Seamen to fight the Guns in the Battery, as well as help to build it. Whether the Engineers proposed to batter the angular Point of the Bastion in Breach is Matter of Doubt, at the first laying out of their Battery; however it is generally believed, it was Hap-hazard; for the most impartial Judges in the Navy and Army agree, if the Enemy had cut down eighty or an hundred Paces of the Woods further round the Castle, the Undertaking would have been so difficult, as to have shocked the Science of all the Engineers, if not quite disheartened them, from so daring an Enterprise.
The Position the Enemy had lain their Ships in, was beyond all Doubt the most advantageous, could be formed by Man; both for opposing any Attempt, that might be made by Shipping on the Entrance into the Harbour; or annoy any Battery, that could be raised ashore; and as they found no Battery against them, they failed not to play as briskly and did ten times more Damage than the Castle.
These Ships were ordered to cannonade purely to oblige the General, who, because the Enemy's Ships fired at his Battery, desired the Admiral would send Ships to cannonade the Castle, though there was a Battery of twenty Guns to fire against five or six so they had their Masts and Yards shot to pieces, and Numbers of Men killed and wounded, without doing any other Damage than beating down the Rubbish; for they could not come to hurt the Enemy's Ships, nor did it divert their Ships from firing at the Battery.
It may be remarked as something extraordinary, that although the Army thought the Breach just practicable, they should entirely cease firing, the Night before they intended the Attack; as it is a sort of an established Rule in all regular Sieges, to keep firing in the Night, to prevent the Enemy's removing the Rubbish, that is beat down in the Day, which the Enemy would certainly have done, if they had been sufficiently strong; for they began that Night a Counter-Battery of Fascines on the Ramparts, in order to have disputed it longer, which if they had had Time to have finished, and Numbers to have carried on both Works together, moving the Rubbish from the Foot of the Breach, and compleating these Counter-Batteries, they would have rendered the Attack as difficult as from the Beginning.
Though this Castle was capable of making a pretty good Defence, yet the above Reasons justify the Enemy in abandoning it. There was in the Castle fifty seven Guns, which the Enemy had spiked up, and the Powder they had thrown into the Cistern of Water, and spoiled, but most of the Guns were got clear again, and the Castle was garisoned with one hundred regular Troops, and about fifty Seamen.
When the Council of War met, several of the general Officers and Colonels dissented from this Resolution, as judging it too rash an Undertaking, without a proper Breach being made first, or at least before the Place had been well reconnoitred; but in order to solve this last Difficulty, there were several Deserters that offered to go as Guides, and three of the most intelligent were pitched upon.
As when Faults are committed, the first Thing sought after is an Excuse; so, not succeeding in this Attack, the Army now fell to blaming the Guides, saying, they had led them the wrong Way; the Guides again say, the Army would not follow them the Way they would have led them; but had Reason alone been their Guide, sure they should have attacked the Castle on the weakest Side; whereas they attacked it on the strongest Side, where the Hill was most difficult of Access; and when they found themselves repulsed, and at a Loss what to do, the speedier they had made their Retreat, the smaller had been their Loss.
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