British uniforms which both sides were wearing.  A Herculean sailor seized the first ladder the Americans set against the barricade, hauled it up, and set it against the window of a house out of the far end of which the enemy were firing.  Major Nairne and Lieutenant Dambourges of the Royal Emigrants at once climbed in at the head of a storming-party and wild work followed with the bayonet.  All the Americans inside were either killed or captured.  Meanwhile a vigorous British nine-pounder had been turned on another house they occupied.  This house was likewise battered in, so that its surviving occupants had to run into the street, where they were well plied with musketry by the regulars and militiamen.  The chance for a sortie then seeming favourable, Lieutenant Anderson of the Navy headed his thirty-five merchant mates and skippers in a rush along Sault-au-Matelot Street.  But his effort was premature.  Morgan shot him dead, and Morgan’s Virginians drove the seamen back inside the barricade.

Carleton had of course kept in perfect touch with every phase of the attack and defence; and now, fearing no surprise against the walls in the growing daylight, had decided on taking Arnold’s men in rear.  To do this he sent Captain Lawes of the Royal Engineers and Captain McDougall of the Royal Emigrants with a hundred and twenty men out through Palace Gate.  This detachment had hardly reached the advanced barricade before they fell in with the enemy’s rearguard, which they took by complete surprise and captured to a man.  Leaving McDougall to secure these prisoners before following on, Lawes pushed eagerly forward, round the corner of the Sault-au-Matelot cliff, and, running in among the Americans facing the main barricade, called out, ‘You are all my prisoners!’ ’No, we’re not; you’re ours!’ they answered.  ‘No, no,’ replied Lawes, as coolly as if on parade ’don’t mistake yourselves, I vow to God you’re mine!’ ‘But where are your men?’ asked the astonished Americans; and then Lawes suddenly found that he was utterly alone!  The roar of the storm and the work of securing the prisoners on the far side of the advanced barricade had prevented the men who should have followed him from understanding that only a few were needed with McDougall.  But Lawes put a bold face on it and answered, ’O, Ho, make yourselves easy!  My men are all round here and they’ll be with you in a twinkling.’  He was then seized and disarmed.  Some of the Americans called out, ‘Kill him!  Kill him!’ But a Major Meigs protected him.  The whole parley had lasted about ten minutes when McDougall came running up with the missing men, released Lawes, and made prisoners of the nearest Americans.  Lawes at once stepped forward and called on the rest to surrender.  Morgan was for cutting his way through.  A few men ran round by the wharf and escaped on the tidal flats of the St Charles.  But, after a hurried consultation, the main body, including Morgan, laid down their arms.  This was decisive.  The British had won the fight.