By leave of Bill Adams, commanding, our Major made one of the crew of twelve.
In less than a quarter of an hour their approach was signalled by the enemy's vedettes to the forts ashore, which promptly opened fire.
Mr.Adams, having towed the catamaran within its proper range, with his own hand pulled the plug releasing the clockwork, and gave the order to cast off, leaving wind and tide to do the rest; which they doubtless would have done had not a gun from one of the French batteries plumped a shot accurately into the catamaran.
The catamaran exploded with a terrific report, and the wave of the explosion caught the retreating boat, lifted her seven feet, capsized her, and brought her accurately down, bottom upwards.
A score of boats put out to the rescue, picked up the exhausted swimmers, and attempted to right and recover the boat, but abandoned this attempt on the approach of an overwhelming force of French.
These, coming up, seized on the boat and gallantly, under a short-dropping fire from our squadron, proceeded to right their prize; and, righting her, discovered Major Hymen, clinging to a thwart, trapped as an earwig is trapped beneath an inverted flower-pot..