37.) When the French vessels were towed into the position selected for the attack, "it was lucky for us," says the French officer in his report, "that the Mexicans did not disturb this operation, which lasted nearly two hours, and that they permitted us to commence the fire." "We were exposed to the fire of one twenty-four-pounder, five sixteen-pounders, seven twelve-pounders, one eight-pounder, and five eighteen-pounder carronades--_in all nineteen pieces only_." If these be converted into equivalent twenty-four-pounders, in proportion to the weight of the balls, the whole nineteen guns will be _less than twelve twenty-four pounders_.

This estimate is much too great, for it allows three eight-pounders to be equal to one twenty-four-pounder, and each of the eighteen-pounder carronades to be three quarters the power of a long twenty-four-pounder; whereas, at the distance at which the parties were engaged, these small pieces were nearly harmless.

Two of the powder magazines, from not being bomb-proof, were blown up during the engagement, by which three of the nineteen guns on the water front of the castle were dismounted; thus reducing the land force to _an equivalent of ten twenty-four-pounders_.

The other sixteen guns were still effective when abandoned by the Mexicans.

The cannonade and bombardment continued about six hours, eight thousand two hundred and fifty shot and shells being fired at the fort by the French.