The force destined for the Southern coasts assembled at Cork towards the end of 1775, and sailed thence in January, 1776.  The troops were commanded by Lord Cornwallis, the squadron by Nelson’s early patron, Commodore Sir Peter Parker, whose broad pennant was hoisted on board the Bristol, 50.  After a boisterous passage, the expedition arrived in May off Cape Fear in North Carolina, where it was joined by two thousand men under Sir Henry Clinton, Cornwallis’s senior, whom Howe by the government’s orders had detached to the southward in January.  Upon Clinton’s appearance, the royalists in North Carolina had risen, headed by the husband of Flora Macdonald, whose name thirty years before had been associated romantically with the escape of the young Pretender from Scotland.  She had afterwards emigrated to America.  The rising, however, had been put down, and Clinton had not thought it expedient to try a serious invasion, in face of the large force assembled to resist him.  Upon Parker’s coming, it was decided to make an attempt upon Charleston, South Carolina.  The fleet therefore sailed from Cape Fear on the 1st of June, and on the 4th anchored off Charleston Bar.

Charleston Harbour opens between two of the sea-islands which fringe the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia.  On the north is Sullivan’s Island, on the south James Island.  The bar of the main entrance was not abreast the mouth of the port, but some distance south of it.  Inside the bar, the channel turned to the northward, and thence led near Sullivan’s Island, the southern end of which was therefore chosen as the site of the rude fort hastily thrown up to meet this attack, and afterwards called Fort Moultrie, from the name of the commander.  From these conditions, a southerly wind was needed to bring ships into action.  After sounding and buoying the bar, the transports and frigates crossed on the 7th and anchored inside; but as it was necessary to remove some of the Bristol’s guns, she could not follow until the 10th.  On the 9th Clinton had landed in person with five hundred men, and by the 15th all the troops had disembarked upon Long Island, next north of Sullivan’s.  It was understood that the inlet between the two was fordable, allowing the troops to cooeperate with the naval attack, by diversion or otherwise; but this proved to be a mistake.  The passage was seven feet deep at low water, and there were no means for crossing; consequently a small American detachment in the scrub wood of the island sufficed to check any movement in that quarter.  The fighting therefore was confined to the cannonading of the fort by the ships.

Circumstances not fully explained caused the attack to be fixed for the 23d; an inopportune delay, during which Americans were strengthening their still very imperfect defences.  On the 23d the wind was unfavourable.  On the 25th the Experiment, 50, arrived, crossed the bar, and, after taking in her guns again, was ready to join in the assault.  On the 27th, at 10 A.M., the ships got under way with a south-east breeze, but this shifted soon afterwards to north-west, and they had to anchor again, about a mile nearer to Sullivan’s Island.  On the following day the wind served, and the attack was made.