Owing to the scarcity of ammunition in the fort, the garrison had positive orders not to engage at ranges exceeding four hundred yards.  Four or five shots were thrown at the Active, while still under sail, but with this exception the fort kept silence until the ships anchored, at a distance estimated by the Americans to be three hundred and fifty yards.  The word was then passed along the platform, “Mind the Commodore; mind the two 50-gun ships,”—­an order which was strictly obeyed, as the losses show.  The protection of the work proved to be almost perfect,—­a fact which doubtless contributed to the coolness and precision of fire vitally essential with such deficient resources.  The texture of the palmetto wood suffered the balls to sink smoothly into it without splintering, so that the facing of the work held well.  At times, when three or four broadsides struck together, the merlons shook so that Moultrie feared they would come bodily in; but they withstood, and the small loss inflicted was chiefly through the embrasures.  The flagstaff being shot away, falling outside into the ditch, a young sergeant, named Jasper, distinguished himself by jumping after it, fetching back and rehoisting the colours under a heavy fire.

In the squadron an equal gallantry was shown under circumstances which made severe demands upon endurance.  Whatever Parker’s estimate of the worth of the defences, no trace of vain-confidence appears in his dispositions, which were thorough and careful, as the execution of the main attack was skilful and vigorous; but the ships’ companies, expecting an easy victory, had found themselves confronted with a resistance and a punishment as severe as were endured by the leading ships at Trafalgar, and far more prolonged.  Such conditions impose upon men’s tenacity the additional test of surprise and discomfiture.  The Experiment, though very small for a ship of the line, lost 23 killed and 56 wounded, out of a total probably not much exceeding 300; while the Bristol, having the spring shot away, swung with her head to the southward and her stern to the fort, undergoing for a long time a raking fire to which she could make little reply.  Three several attempts to replace the spring were made by Mr. James Saumarez,—­afterwards the distinguished admiral, Lord de Saumarez, then a midshipman,—­before the ship was relieved from this grave disadvantage.  Her loss was 40 killed and 71 wounded; not a man escaping of those stationed on the quarter-deck at the beginning of the action.  Among the injured was the Commodore himself, whose cool heroism must have been singularly conspicuous, from the notice it attracted in a service where such bearing was not rare.  At one time when the quarter-deck was cleared and he stood alone upon the poop-ladder, Saumarez suggested to him to come down; but he replied, smiling, “You want to get rid of me, do you?” and refused to move.  The captain of the ship, John Morris, was mortally wounded.  With commendable modesty Parker only reported himself as slightly bruised; but deserters stated that for some days he needed the assistance of two men to walk, and that his trousers had been torn off him by shot or splinters.  The loss in the other ships was only one killed, 14 wounded.  The Americans had 37 killed and wounded.