They had only rejoined the Tartar a short time when, on the 5th February, 1794, the captain was signalled to proceed with a small squadron that was to sail, under Captain Linzee of the Alcide, as commodore, to Corsica, where a force under General Paoli had asked for assistance in their endeavours to regain their freedom.
The chief strongholds of that island were the fortified towns of San Fiorenzo, Bastia, and Calvi. These towns are near each other, and as the troops scornfully rejected his summons to surrender, the commodore was placed in a difficulty. The [pg 244]force under his command was not strong enough to blockade the three forts at once, while they were so near each other that to blockade one or two and leave the entrance to the other open would have been useless. He determined at first to take Forneilli, a fortified place two miles from San Fiorenzo, but when he opened the attack he found that it was so much more strongly fortified than he had anticipated that its capture could not be effected without more loss than the gain of the position would justify.
Lord Hood then placed a squadron of frigates under Captain Nelson’s command to cruise off the north-western coast of the island so as to prevent supplies being introduced, and he also sailed there himself with some of his seventy-fours and a body of soldiers under Major-general Dundas. Before he arrived, Nelson had done something towards facilitating his enterprise, for, having learned that the French in San Fiorenzo drew their supplies of flour from a mill near the shore, he landed a body of seamen and soldiers and burnt the mill, threw into the sea all the flour contained in it and in a large storehouse close to it, and regained his ship without the loss of a man.
When Lord Hood arrived he ordered Nelson to land on the island to prevent supplies from getting into Bastia, and took charge of the siege of San Fiorenzo himself. On his way Nelson captured the town of Maginaggio, routed the garrison, and destroyed a great quantity of provisions which were being prepared for a number of French vessels in the harbour. Lord Hood commenced the siege by attacking the town of Mortella. The garrison fought with great bravery and inflicted heavy loss upon the Fortitude, seventy-four guns, to which the task of battering was assigned. As she was [pg 245]evidently getting the worst of it the Fortitude was withdrawn, but the shore batteries were more successful, and the place being set on fire the garrison surrendered.
The Convention redoubt was the next place to be attacked. It was fortified in a most formidable manner, and indeed was so strongly constructed as to withstand any ordinary attack. A short distance away, however, was a rock rising seven hundred feet above the level of the sea, which entirely commanded it. This the enemy had left unfortified and unguarded because they believed it was inaccessible. In many places it was almost perpendicular, and though there was a path leading to the summit, this was in very few places wide enough to allow more than one person to ascend at a time. Admiral Hood in person reconnoitred and decided that a battery could be formed on the summit.
The next day Will was on shore in command of a party of thirty men who were to start getting up the guns. The sailors looked at the rock and at the guns in dismay.
“La, Mr. Gilmore,” one of them said, “we can never get them up there! In the first place it is too steep, and in the second it is too rough. It would take two hundred men to do it, and even they would not be much good, for the path winds and twists so much that they could not put their strength on together.”
Will looked at the path, and at the hill on which the new battery was to be formed.
“You see, sir,” another said, “the path would have to be blasted in lots of places to make room for the guns, and we have got no tools for the job.”
Will did not answer. He saw that what the men said was [pg 246]correct. Presently, however, his eye fell upon an empty rum puncheon, and at once his thoughts flashed back to the West Indies.