More than an hour of this heavy firing failing to produce submission, Lord Exmouth resolved to destroy the Algerine fleet. The Leander was ordered to cease firing, and the flag-ship barge, under Lieutenant Richards, was ordered to board the nearest frigate of the enemy, with laboratory torches and carcass shells. This duty was gallantly performed, and so effectually, that the men of the barge had barely time to tumble over the side when the frigate was a mass of flames. The barge was received with three hearty cheers on its return. Next, the launch of the Queen Charlotte opened on the largest frigate in the port with carcass shells, and despite the frantic efforts of the Algerines to save her, she was soon completely on fire. From this frigate the fire spread to all the other boats and vessels in the harbour, and from these to the storehouses and arsenal, until the whole place was wrapped in smoke and flames.
Meanwhile the other ships had done terrible execution on the walls and houses immediately opposite to them, while the bomb-vessels threw their deadly missiles right over their own ships and into the town and arsenal, with tremendous effect.
Thus the work of destruction went on all the afternoon, while men, of course, fell fast on both sides—for the deadly game of war cannot be carried on except at fearful cost. Even in the secondary matter of matériel the cost is not small. As night approached the guns of the enemy were completely silenced, and the ships began to husband their ammunition, for they had by that time fired an immense quantity of gunpowder, and 50,000 shot, weighing more than 500 tons of iron; besides 960 shells of large size, as well as a considerable quantity of shot, shell, and rockets from the flotilla! The result was that the entire fleet of the pirates was destroyed, and the sea-defences of Algiers, with a great part of the town itself, were shattered and crumbled in ruins.
Then the fleet hauled off with considerable difficulty, owing to the absence of wind; but the pirates had not given in, for they kept spitting at their foes from the upper batteries of the town until half-past eleven at night, when the ships got out of range and firing ceased.
Strange to say, the powers of nature, which had hitherto slumbered quietly, now came into play. The breeze freshened and a tremendous storm of thunder, lightning, and rain came on, as if to mock the fury of man, and humble him under a sense of his relative littleness.
But man is not easily humbled. Next morning the pirates still showed a disinclination to give in, and the British fleet resumed the offensive in order to compel them to do so.
The gun-boats were again placed in position, and Lieutenant Burgess was sent ashore with a flag of truce to demand unconditional surrender.