engaged at their work were, without warning of any kind, almost annihilated by artillery fire from the fort and by the musketry of 2000 Algerian infantry, their houses and goods were given over to the looting of the soldiery, the company's stores and magazines were rifled, and their boats either seized or sunk. This atrocity, of course, put an end to all negotiation, and the Admiral, who had sailed for England, was at once directed by the British Government to complete the work which he had initiated, and to exact the most ample satisfaction and security for the future. He was offered any force that might be necessary, and surprised the naval authorities by his opinion, which was the result of observation upon the spot, that five line-of-battle ships, with frigates, bomb vessels and gun brigs, would be sufficient for a successful attack on the formidable defences of Algiers. In less than two months Lord Exmouth commissioned, fitted, manned and trained his fleet, and on August 14, 1816, the expedition, including his own flagship the _Queen Charlotte_ of 120 guns, the _Impregnable_ of 98, three vessels of 70 guns, the _Leander_ of 50, four smaller frigates and several armed vessels of lesser tonnage, sailed from Gibraltar. One of these, a gunboat, towed by the _Queen Charlotte_ from that port, was placed under the command of Charles Yorke, who had just completed his seventeenth year. The English admiral's force was joined at Gibraltar by a Dutch squadron of five frigates and a sloop under Admiral Baron von de Capellan.

On the very eve of the sailing of this powerful force, young Yorke wrote home a letter to his father which shows the spirit of the young sailor and the enthusiasm which animated the fleet.

* * * * *

'MY DEAR FATHER,

'We are hove to for a Packet, and she is coming up fast, so my stave will be short, with a strong breeze, which is to say I am quite well. We have a great deal to do, shall be at Gibraltar to-morrow if the wind holds. We clear for action there, and leave all our chests, bulkheads, and everything we have except guns, powder, shot, &c. &c. of which we have not a little.

'I have the honour to command one of H.M.S. _Queen Charlotte's_ boats on service, and if there is any work, expect to cut no small caper. I have seen the plan of attack; all our fire is to be on the mole head. Us, the _Leander_, _Superb_ and _Impregnable_ are to be lashed together and as near the walls as possible. _Minden_ engages a battery called the Emperor's Fort, and _Albion_ stands off and on to relieve any damaged ship. As soon as the Mole is cleared, we are to land; glorious enterprise for the boats.

'Give my love to dearest Uranie and Lady C. [Footnote: Dowager- Marchioness of Clanricarde, his stepmother.] &c. &c.

'Your affecte.

'C. YORKE.'

* * * * *

The British fleet with its allied Dutch squadron arrived off Algiers on August 21. Lord Exmouth had sent in advance a corvette with orders to endeavour to rescue the British Consul, a humane effort which, however, succeeded only in rescuing that gentleman's wife and child, and resulted, on the other hand, in the capture of the boat's crew of eighteen men. The captain of the corvette reported that the Dey refused altogether to give up that official, or to be responsible for his safety, and also that there were 40,000 troops in the town, in addition to the Janissaries who had been summoned from distant garrisons. The Algerine fleet, he said, consisted of between forty and fifty gun and mortar vessels, as well as a numerous flotilla of galleys. Works had been thrown up on the mole which protected the harbour, and the forts were known to be armed with a numerous artillery and to be of excellent masonry with walls fourteen to sixteen feet thick. The Dey, thinking himself fairly secure behind such defences, was prepared with a determined resistance.

On August 27, Lord Exmouth sent a flag of truce restating his demands and giving a period of three hours for a reply. Upon the expiration of that term and on the return of the flag of truce without an answer, he anchored his flagship just half a cable's length from the mole head at the entrance of the harbour, so that her starboard broadside flanked all the batteries from the mole-head to the lighthouse. The mole itself was covered with troops and spectators, whom Lord Exmouth vainly tried to disperse before the firing began by waving his hat and shouting from his own quarter-deck as the flagship came to an anchor at half-past two in the afternoon.

'As soon as the ship was fairly placed,' writes Lord Exmouth's biographer, 'the sound of the cheer given by the crew was answered by a gun from the Eastern Battery; a second and a third opened in quick succession. One of the shots struck the _Superb_. At the first flash Lord Exmouth gave the order "Stand by," at the second "Fire." The report of the third gun was drowned by the thunder of the _Queen Charlotte's_ broadside.'

Thus opened an engagement which is memorable among the attacks of fleets upon land fortifications, and which fully justified Lord Exmouth's opinion that 'nothing can resist a line-of-battle ship's fire.' The Algerine tactics were to allow the British squadron to come to an anchor without molestation, and to board the vessels from their galleys while the British crews were aloft furling sails, for which purpose they had thirty-seven galleys fully manned waiting inside the mole. To the surprise of the enemy, however, the British admiral had given orders for the sails to be clewed from the deck, instead of sending men aloft for the purpose, and the British ships were thus able to open fire the moment they came to an anchor. The result of this smart seamanship was an instant disaster for the Algerines; their galleys were all sunk before they could make the few strokes of the oar which would have brought them alongside, and tremendous broadsides of grapeshot from the _Queen Charlotte_ and the _Leander_ shattered the entire flotilla, and in a moment covered the surface of the harbour with the bodies of their crews and with a few survivors attempting to swim from destruction.

On the molehead the effect of the British fire was terrible; the people with whom it was crowded were swept away by the fire of the _Queen Charlotte_, which had ruined the fortifications there before the engagement became general, and then crumbled and brought down the Lighthouse Tower and its batteries. The _Leander's_ guns, which commanded the principal gate of the city opening on the mole, prevented the escape of any survivors.

The batteries defending the mole were three times cleared by the British fire, and three times manned again.

'The Dey,' wrote a British officer on the _Leander_, 'was everywhere offering pecuniary rewards for those who would stand against us; eight sequins were to be given to every man who would endeavour to extinguish the fire. At length a horde of Arabs were driven into the batteries under the direction of the most devoted of the Janissaries and the gates closed upon them.'

Soon after the battle began, the enemy's flotilla of gunboats advanced, with a daring which deserved a better fate, to board the _Queen Charlotte_, and a few guns from the latter vessel sent thirty-three out of thirty-seven to the bottom. Then followed the destruction of the Algerine frigates and other shipping in the port, which were set on fire by bombs and shells and burned together with the storehouses and the arsenal.

The Algerines, none the less, made a most determined resistance, and maintained a fire upon the squadron for no less than eleven hours. Young Charles Yorke was in command of a tender of the flagship which was moored near to his parent ship, and was consequently in the midst of the hottest fire, within sixty yards of the mouths of the enemy's guns, throughout the engagement. Long before that period had elapsed, however, he found himself running short of ammunition, and taking one marine in his dinghy, pulled in her to the _Queen Charlotte_, climbed her side and made his way to the quarter-deck, where, saluting Lord Exmouth, he said, 'Sir, I am short of ammunition.' 'Well, my lad,' replied the admiral, 'I cannot help you, but if you choose to go below, and fetch what you want yourself, you are very welcome.' Charles Yorke, wishing for nothing better, again saluted and withdrew. He then descended into the flagship's magazine, and single-handed brought up 1368 lbs. of ammunition, which he lowered over her side to his single marine in the dinghy, and in her returned to his gunboat to resume his firing until the close of the action, when, by the aid of a land breeze, which turned about half-past eleven into a tremendous storm of thunder and lightning, the fleet was able to draw out from the batteries. Nothing had been able to resist the concentrated and well-directed fire, and the sea defences of Algiers, with a great part of the town itself, had by this time been shattered and reduced to ruin.

This success was only purchased at heavy cost, for the British casualties, considering the size of the squadron, were enormous, the _Impregnable_ being the chief sufferer. One hundred and twenty- eight men were killed and 690 wounded, while the Dutch lost thirteen and fifty-two respectively. The _Leander_ had every spar injured and her rigging cut to pieces, and when her cables were at last shot away, was unable to set a single sail, and so was drifting helplessly ashore, when a fortunate change of wind allowed her boats to bring her to a second anchorage. On the flagship the enemy's fire was so hot that Lord Exmouth himself escaped most narrowly, being slightly wounded in three places, and the skirts of his coat were shot away by a cannon-ball.

When the morning broke, the admiral found that he had brought the Dey to reason. Having first beheaded his prime minister, that potentate released the British Consul and the boat's crew he had detained before the action, handed over the ransom money he had extorted from captured subjects of Naples and Sardinia in exchange for their freedom, amounting to no less than 382,000 dollars, and undertook, 'in the presence of Almighty God,' to release all Christian slaves in his dominions, to abandon the enslavement of Christians for the future, and to treat all prisoners of war with humanity until regularly exchanged, according to European practice in like cases. About 1200 slaves, the bulk of them Neapolitans and Sicilians, were embarked on the 31st, making, with those liberated a few weeks before, more than 3000 persons whom Lord Exmouth thus had the satisfaction of delivering from slavery. He sailed away from the city without leaving a single Christian slave, so far as could be gathered, in either of the Barbary States.

Charles Yorke's conduct at this engagement was fully recognised by Captain Brisbane, who, when the young midshipman came to leave the _Queen Charlotte_ a few months later, wrote his certificate in the following terms:

* * * * *

'These are to certify the principal officers and commissioners of His Majesty's navy that Mr. Charles Philip Yorke served as midshipman on board H.M.S. _Queen Charlotte_ from the 11th day of July to the 16th October 1816, during which time he behaved with diligence and