Note 51 — Chapter XXX

Lord Mahon's History of England, etc., Vol. VII., Chap. lxiv., p. 172.

"On the other hand, Lord Cornwallis is admitted to have shown most undaunted resolution. The officers under him, and the troops, German and English, all did their duty well. For some weeks they had laboured hard, and unremittingly, in raising their defences; and they were now prepared with equal spirit to maintain their half-completed works. But besides the enemy without, they had another within—an epidemic sickness, that stretched many hundreds helpless in their pallet-beds. Nor could they hinder Washington from completing his first parallel and opening his fire upon them in the evening of the 9th of October. For two days the fire was incessant from heavy cannon, and from mortars and howitzers, throwing shells in showers on the town, until, says Cornwallis, all our guns on the left were silenced, our works much damaged, and our loss of men considerable. By these shells, also, the Charon, a ship of forty-four guns, together with three British transports in the river, were set in flames and consumed."—Ib., p. 173.