By way of adding to these hardy doings, the wordy popinjay, Colonel Nichols, fulminates new proclamations, comic in their ignorance and bombast. He believes that the formidable General can be whipped by manifestoes. As against this belief, however, most careful preparations move forward aboard the English ships, looking to the destruction of Fort Bowyer and the capture of Mobile; for Captain Percy of the Hermes, who has command of the fleet, is altogether a practical person, and pins no faith to proclamations and Indians in red coats when it comes to bringing a foe to his knees.
All these interesting items are laid before the General by his painstaking scouts, and he is peculiarly struck with the word about Captain Percy and Mobile. He sends back his scouts for another bagful of news, and begins to strengthen and stiffen Fort Bowyer, thirty miles below the town.
Having patched up this redoubt to his taste, the General puts Major Lawrence in command, and tells him to fight his batteries while a man remains alive. Major Lawrence says he will; and, not having a ship, but a fort, to defend, he follows as nearly as he may the motto of his heroic relative, and issues the watchword, “Don't give up the Fort!” Leaving Major Lawrence in this high vein, the General goes back to Mobile to concert plans for its protection.
Captain Percy of the Hermes is a gallant man, but a bad judge of Americans. He tells the proclaiming Colonel Nichols that he will take four ships and capture Fort Bowyer in twenty minutes. Colonel Nichols has so little trouble in believing this that he conceives the deed of conquest already done. Full of hope and strong waters—for the English have not given the thirsty Red Sticks all their gin—he is so far worked upon by Captain Percy's turgid prophecies as to issue a new proclamation, declaring Fort Bowyer taken, and showing how, presently, the English intend doing likewise at New Orleans. Having taken time so conspicuously by the forelock, the anticipatory Colonel Nichols—who has never been in the chicken trade, and therefore knows nothing of what perils attend a count of poultry noses before the poultry are hatched—goes aboard the Hermes, with Captain Woodbine and others of his staff; for he would be on the ground, when Fort Bowyer and Mobile succumb, ready to assume control of those strongholds.
It is no mighty voyage from Pensacola to Mobile, and a half day's sail will bring Colonel Nichols and Captain Percy within point-blank range of Fort Bowyer. Taking a bright, cool morning for it, Captain Percy lets fall his topsails, and forges seaward, followed by the cordial wishes of Governor Maurequez who, glass in hand, drinks “Good voyage!” from the ramparts of St. Michael.
“All I regret is,” cries the valorous Governor Maurequez, in the politest phrases of Castile, “that you brave English will destroy these vagabonds, and thus deprive me and my heroic soldiery of the pleasure of their obliteration, when they shall have invaded our beloved Florida.”
Away go the English war ships in line, like a quartette of geese crossing a mill pond, the Hermes, Captain Percy, in the van. The fleet rounds the lower extremity of Mobile Point, out of range from Fort Bowyer, and lands Colonel Nichols with a force of foot soldiers and a howitzer. This military feat accomplished, the fleet, still like geese in line, bear up until abreast of the Fort, which is a musket shot away.
There is no time wasted. The Hermes lets go her anchors and swings broadside-on to the Fort. The others follow suit. Then, with a crashing discharge of big guns by way of overture, the fight is on.
Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes go by; shots fly and shells burst, and Major Lawrence still holds the fort. Evidently Captain Percy cut his time too fine! Then, one hour, two hours follow, and Major Lawrence's twenty-four pounders are making matches of the Hermes.
As the merry war progresses, Colonel Nichols, with much ardor and no discernment, drags his howitzer to a strategic sand hill, and fires one shot at Fort Bowyer. It is a badly considered movement, the instant effect being to draw the Fort's horns his way. The southern battery of the Fort opens upon him like a tornado, and he and his fellow artillerists retire—without their howitzer. The most discouraging feature is that a stone, sent flying from the strategic sand hill by a cannon ball, knocks out one of Colonel Nichols's eyes. After this exploit, the one-eyed proclamationist, much saddened, but with wisdom increased, is content to stand afar off, and leave the down-battering of Fort Bowyer to the fleet.