carronade at its prow, its serried files of scarlet uniforms and dazzling crest of bayonets, and the six oars on each side, flashing in and out of the water.
The American boats lay silent, quiet, apparently lifeless. Then, a flash, a roar, and a shot went crashing through the scarlet line. With an answer from their carronades, the British barges leaped forward, and clinched with the gunboats. It was musket to musket, pistol to pistol, cutlass to cutlass, man to man, with shouts and cries, taunts and imprecations, and the steady roar throughout of the American cannon, cutting with deadly aim into the open British barges, capsizing, sinking them; the water spotting with struggling red uniforms.
Two of the American boats were captured, and their guns turned against the others, and the British barges closing in, the American crews one by one were beaten below their own decks and overpowered. By half-past twelve the British flag waved triumphant over Lake Borgne.
The British troops were forwarded in transports from the fleet to the Ile des Pois, near the mouth of Pearl River, a bare little island and a desolate camp, where, with no tents, the men were drenched with dew, and chilled with frosts during the night, and, during the day, parched with the sun; many died from it. From some fisherman it was learned that about fifty miles west of Ile aux Pois there was a bayou that had not been closed and was not defended and which was navigable by barges for twelve miles, where it joined a canal, leading to a plantation on the river, a few miles below the city. To test the accuracy of the information, Sir Alexander Cochrane despatched a boat under charge of
