fleet were incapable of affording any aid; every account which they had given of the soundings having proved erroneous; adding that their ships had nearÎy all lost their rudders on the eleventh, and expressing their belief that, if they had proceeded any further, they should have found prompt and effectual manœuvres impossible. They observed also, that they had all along feared, that the artillery of the fort could reach the channel; but they had now the melancholy certainty that it commanded, not only the channel over the bar, but even the island of St. Rosa. There being, in the fort, twenty-four pounders, the balls of which would rake, fore and aft, any vessel that should attempt attempt to cross the bar, and the direction of the channel was such, that they were obliged to present their sides, poop and prow to the enemy's guns; that the channel was, besides, so narrow, that the first ship that got aground would obstruct the passage, and the rapidity of the current preventing any quick manœuvre, the ships would run foul of each other before they could turn, even if that were possible. They came to the conclusion that, as the general deemed the crossing of the bar an object of vast importance to the king's service, the commodore should send one or two officers, attended by three or four pilots, to sound the channel as far as Point Siguenza, during the night; a fire being made on that point, in order to ascertain the direction in which a vessel might be most easily managed; after which, a second trial might be made.

Irazabal expressed his individual opinion, that any attempt to attack the British by water would be fruitless, and recommended that the land force should be immediately employed in the reduction of the fort.

Galvez thought he discovered, in the commodore and the captains of the armed ships, a reluctance to co-operate with him in any measure, of which they imagined he would exclusively reap the glory in case of success, and that they were disposed to impede, rather than to aid his plans. He replied to Irazabal, that the loss of a ship or two, from which all on board could easily be saved, was not to be put in comparison with that of the whole fleet and the transports, to which they were exposed in case of a storm, and which would entirely prevent the success of their undertaking. After having requested that the captains should again be called together to reconsider their former report, he determined to attempt, with the naval means of which he had the immediate command, what he could not obtain from the commodore.

Accordingly, the brig Galvezton, commanded by Rousseau, which had lately arrived with ordnance from New-Orleans, cast anchor near the bar; and the captain, having sounded the channel as far as Point Siguenza, during the night between the fif teenth and sixteenth, he next morning reported there was water enough in the shallowest part of the channel for the largest ship in the fleet, with her full load.

The captains of the armed ships met on board of the commodore's ship, and having reconsidered their report of the fourteenth, declared they could not do any thing but refer the general to it.

Don Joseph de Espeleta had arrived on the sixteenth, with the force from Mobile and the militia from the neighbourhood, and on the seventeenth, Don Estevan Miro came from New-Orleans with the Louisiana forces. They all landed on the western side of Rio Perdido.

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Convinced, now, there was no means of inducing Irazabal to make a second attempt to bring the fleet and convoy over the bar, Galvez, from the experience he had on his way to Mobile in the spring, and from Havana in the fall of the preceding year, of the danger he incurred by remaining longer exposed to a storm, directed the brig Galvezton, a schooner just arrived from New-Orleans, under the order of Riano, and two gun boats, which constituted all the naval force under his immediate command, to prepare for crossing the bar; in the hope that their success might induce the officers of the royal navy to follow them. Towards noon, Rousseau, with his brig, the schooner, and gun boats, cast anchor near the bar, and at half past two, Galvez went on board of the brig, directed a pendant to be displayed on her main mast, a salute to be fired, and sail to be set. The fort immediately began a brisk cannonade, principally directed upon the brig, on board of which it was apparent the general was embarked. Neither the brig, schooner, nor gun boats received any injury, except in their sails and rigging; and Galvez landed at the bottom of the bay, on the island of St. Rosa, under a salute, and amid the acclamations of his

At four o'clock, he made an effort, with two of his aids, to cross the bar, in order to go and confer with Espeleta and Miro, and devise with them a plan of attack; but the violence of the wind compelled him to desist, and he reached the camp at midnight.

In the morning of the twentieth, he sent one of his aids to gǝneral Campbell with a message, in which he informed him that, when the British came to Havana in 1762, their commander intimated to the captain-general of the Catholic king, that if any of the king's edifices, ships, or other property were destroyed, the Spaniards would be treated with all the rigour and severity of the laws of war; that the intimation was now made to the general and whoever it might concern, and under the same terms.

At night, the British sat fire to a guard-house on the beach; and Galvez sent Riano's schooner, with the launch of the brig Galvezton, which, for a while, kept up a brisk fire of grape shot on the beach.

A British officer came to the camp, early on the following day, with a message from Campbell, stating that an enemy's threats could only be considered as a stratagem of war, and expressing his hope that, in the defence of Pensacola, he should resort to no measure not justified by the usages of war. He made his acknowledgment for the frank intimation he had received, and gave assurance that his conduct would be regulated by that of the Spanish commander, with regard to certain propositions he had to make, in conjunction with the governor of West Florida.

At noou, an aid of Campbell, accompanied by lieutenant-colonel Dickson, who had been taken the preceding year at Baton Rouge, and liberated on his parol, came in a boat bearing a flag of truce, and

delivered to Galvez letters from Campbell and governor Chester.

The first expressed his conviction that humanity required, as much as possible, the exemption of innocent individuals from the disasters necessarily incident to war; and added, that the garrison of Pensacola was unable to resist the force brought against it, without the total destruction of the town, and the consequent ruin of its inhabitants; and he expressed his desire that the town and garrison should be preserved for the victor-a desire, he said, which arose from the hope he entertained that the efforts of the troops he commanded would be crowned with success. He concluded by proposing that the town should be preserved, without receiving any unnecessary injury from either party, during the siege of the redoubt of the marine and Fort George, within which he meant to contend for the preservation of the province for the British crown, under the stipulation that the town of Pensacola should not be used, by either army, for the purpose either of protecting itself or annoying its adversary; but remain the safe asylum of women, children, the aged and infirm. He added that, in case his proposition was rejected, and the Spaniards sought a shelter in Pensacola, it would become his duty immediately to destroy it.

The governor proposed that some Spanish prisoners in his possession should be liberated on their parol, on the assurance of Galvez, that they should not be employed in the military or civil service of the Catholic king, during the war, unless they were sooner exchanged.

Galvez gave orders that his men should be drawn out under arms, in order that the messengers of Campbell and Chester might report what kind and