“Paonese, the terror of the environs of Gasparena and of Montanio, fell a sacrifice to the columns of Manhes—and Masotta, Mescio, Giacinto, and Antonio, with many others, shared the same fate.
“Murat was not, like his predecessor, lavish of amnesties; nevertheless, he authorized some; and it was observed that the brigand chiefs who took advantage of them became the most formidable and bitter persecutors of those in whose dangers and whose crimes they had participated.
“Benincasa, chief of the band of St. Braggio, fleeing with four companions from a French detachment, was stopped by the swelling of the river Angitola; they tried to effect their passage on a bullock-car, which, however, was stopped in the middle of the current. To a summons to surrender, they only returned discharges of their muskets. At last, after a long and desperate resistance, being all wounded, and having expended their ammunition, they mutually assisted each other in falling into the river, where their mangled bodies were afterwards found.
“A brigand chief, of the band of Foggia, was condemned to have his wrist severed. The executioner having failed in the first blow, the sufferer begged to be permitted to do it himself. He coolly cut off his hand at one blow, and turning to the executioner, said, ‘Endeavour to learn your trade better.’”—Memoir of Stuart’s Campaign in Calabria.
[42] Campaign in Calabria.
[43] It is scarcely conceivable how much the effect of artillery depends on the position of the guns, and the accuracy with which they are pointed. One gun, well placed and skilfully served, has been known to do more execution than one hundred when laid in an unfavourable situation. This was most strikingly illustrated in an attack made by Sir Sydney Smith on a martello tower, armed with two heavy guns, and situated on the extremity of Cape Licosa.
The Pompée, of eighty guns, and two frigates, anchored within eight hundred yards of the battery, and opened their broadsides. Their fire was kept up with unremitting fury, until their ammunition failed, and many of the guns had become unserviceable. The battery returned the fire slowly—but every shot took effect. The Pompée was the only object of its fire, and she was at last completely crippled, and obliged to haul off with the loss of her mizen-top-mast, and nearly forty men killed and wounded. Almost every shot had hulled her—while the concentrated fire from three men-of-war had failed entirely in silencing the French cannonnade.
On the tower being afterwards surrendered, it appeared that the carriage of one of the guns had been disabled by the second shot, and subsequently that it had been fired as it lay on the sill of the embrasure,—so that, in point of fact, the batteries of the Pompée and her consorts had been unable to overpower the fire of a single gun, and the opposition of a garrison, consisting of one officer and twenty-five soldiers.
[44] Campaign in Calabria.
[45] Life of Sir John Moore.