Note 197 — Chapter I

So Napier and most other authorities. John Jones, however, says that the explosion was not accidental, but deliberate—some English deserters had hidden themselves in a small magazine under the rampart. ‘These desperate men, on seeing an officer approach, deeming discovery and capture inevitable, and assured that an ignominious death would follow, blew themselves up in the magazine. The explosion first found vent through the door, and shot the refugees up into the street, some alive, but so mutilated, blackened, and distorted, as to be painful to behold.’