clakke’s travels. 
168 
to that of the descent, signals were made to cook three days’ ! 
provisions for the troops, and for boats of every description to 
put off from their respective ships, and repair to (lie Mondovi 
brig, as a point of rendezvous, when a false fire.should be ; 
shown from the Fouriroyant, the ship of the commander in 
chief. On the following morning, the eighth of March, at 
three o’clock a. m. the expected signal was made. Agreea¬ 
bly to the instructions given, every boat then repaired to take 
in her proportion of troops from the ship, or ships, to which 
they were allotted; and then proceeded to the appointed sta¬ 
tion, close in under the hill, about a league from the enemy, 
/whence they were to move, according to the order of battle ; 
there they all remained, until the whole of the reserve was 
collected around the Mondovi. 
Never was any thing conducted with greater regularity. 
The French, to their astonishment, as they afterward often 
related, instead of beholding a number of men landed pell mell, 
saw the British troops preserving a regular line, as they ad¬ 
vanced in their boats, although the wind was directly in their 
teeth; and, finally, landing in regular order of battle, under 
the heaviest fire perhaps ever experienced. Shells, cannon 
balls, and grape shot-, coming with the wind, fell like a storm of 
hail* about them; yet not a soldier quitted his seat nor mov¬ 
ed, nor did a single sailor shrink.from the hard labour of his oar. 
Not a musket was suffered to be charged, until the troops could 
form upon the strand. They were commanded to sit still in 
the boats; and this command, with inconceivable firmness, did 
theiemen obey; wish the exception only of returning for each 
volley of shot from their enemies three general cheers, an effect 
of ardour in' which their officers found it impossible to restrain 
them. The feelings of those who remained in the ships were 
not proof against such a sight. Several of our brave seamen 
wept like children ; .arid many of those upon the quarter decks, , 
who attempted to use telescopes, suffered the glasses to fall from, 
their hands, and gave vent to their tears. 
But the moment of triumph was at-hand. For three long 
miles, pulling in this manner against the wind, did our brave 
reply; namely, that suggested by another interrogation ; why were we as ignorant of 
the country w hereof we came to take possession, as of the interior of Africa ? 
* Trie sailors upon this occasion compared the thick shower of shot falling about 
them to a violent storm of hail the fleet had experienced in the Bay of Marmorice, 
when the hailstones were said to have been as large as musket balls. “ On the eighth 
of February,’’ says Sir R Wilson , (Eut. oj'tfie &xp. p. 5.)“ commenced the most vio¬ 
lent thunder and hail storm ever remembered, and which continued two days and 
nights intermittingly. The hail r or rather the ice siones, were as big as large walnuts. ” 
