1815	Light Squadrons and Single Ships	356

effected, but by boats, except up the Mississippi ; and that has a bar at its mouth, which shoals to 13 or 14 feet water. There were not, it is true, any American 74s, or 60-gun frigates, building or lying blockaded at New-Orleans ; but those who suggested the expedition well knew that, as the cotton crops of Louisiana, and of the Mississippi territory, had been for some years in accumulation, the city warehouses contained merchandise to an immense amount. Indeed, considering that New-Orleans was the emporium of the annually increasing productions of a great portion of the western states of the republic, the enormous sum of 3,000,0001. was perhaps not an over estimate of what, in the event of even a temporary possession of the city, would have been shared by the captors.

Before we say the little we mean to say on the subject of the attack upon New-Orleans, an unsuccessful enterprise upon a small scale in the vicinity, and which, according to chronological order, should have been included in the preceding year's narrative, requires to be briefly noticed. On the 12th of September, 1814, early in the morning, Captain the Honourable Henry William Percy of the British 20-gun ship Hermes, having under his orders the 20-gun ship Carron, Captain the Honourable Robert Churchill Spencer, and 18-gun brig-sloops Sophie and Childers, Captains Nicholas Lockyer and John Brand Umfreville, anchored off the coast of West Florida, about six miles to the eastward of Mobile point, for the purpose of making an attack upon Fort Bowyer situated on that point, and mounting altogether 28 guns, including 11 long 32 and 24 pounders. The ships afterwards got under way and stood towards Mobile point; but, owing to the narrowness of the channel and the intricacy of the navigation, they did not arrive, until the afternoon of the 15th, in the neighbourhood of the fort.

The Hermes at last gained a station, within musket-shot distance ; the Sophie, Carron, and Childers anchoring in a line astern of her. Previously to this, a detachment of 60 marines and 120 Indians, with a 5�-inch howitzer, under the orders of Major Edward Nicolls, had disembarked on the peninsula. Sixty of the Indians, under Lieutenant Castle, were immediately detached, to secure the pass of Bonsecours, 27 miles to the eastward of the fort. The great distance at which the Carron and Childers had unavoidably anchored confined the effective cannonade, on the part of the British, to the Hermes and Sophie ; nor was the fire of the latter of much use, as, owing to the rottenness of her timbers, and her defective equipment, her carronades drew the bolts, or turned over at every fire. The Hermes, before she had fired many broadsides, having had her cable cut, was carried away by the current, and presented her head to the fort. In that position the British ship remained from 15 to 20 minutes, while the raking fire from the fort kept sweeping the men from her deck. Shortly afterwards the Hermes grounded,

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