midnight
It was some time before we could get up to the place . At last we managed to embark nearly seven hundred seamen and Marines in the boats of the squadron , nearly two hundred on board the ` Fox ' and others , including a detachment of Royal Artillery , in some captured boats . Sir Horatio himself took the command . Shoving off from the ship some time after midnight , we pulled in for the town . The plan was to make a dash for the mole , and then to fight our way forward along it , we fully believing that the enemy would run as soon as we appeared . When the leading boats , under the command of Captains Freemantle and Bowen , had got within half gunshot of the mole head , the enemy took the alarm , and immediately opened fire on us from forty heavy guns . A hot fire it was , I assure you .