The fleet continued beating against a head wind until midnight on the 24th, when the wind shifted to south-west.  On Monday the 20th, at noon, they made Cape Cazzina, the northern point of the Bay of Algiers, and about twenty miles from the town.  Next morning at daybreak, Algiers itself was in sight As the ships lay nearly becalmed, Lord Exmouth sent away Lieutenant Burgess in one of the Queen Charlotte’s boats, under a flag of truce, with the terms dictated by the Prince Regent, and a demand for the immediate liberation of the consul, and the people of the Prometheus.  The Severn was directed to tow the boat, but as she made very little way, the boat was ordered by signal to cast off, and proceed alone to the shore.  At eleven o’clock, she was met outside the mole by the captain of the port, who received the communication, and promised an answer in two hours.  In the mean time, a breeze springing up from the sea, the fleet stood into the bay, and lay to about a mile from the town.

At two o’clock the boat was seen returning, with the signal that no answer had been given.  The Queen Charlotte immediately telegraphed to the fleet, “Are you ready?” Immediately the affirmative was displayed from every ship, and all bore up to their appointed stations.

The Queen Charlotte led to the attack.  It was Lord Exmouth’s intention not to reply to the enemy’s fire in bearing down, unless it should become galling.  In that case, the middle and main-deck guns, thirty long 24-pounders, were to have opened; keeping the upper deck for shortening sail, and the lower for working the cables.  The guns on these decks were not primed until the ship had anchored.  But the Algerines reserved their fire, confident in the strength of their defences, and expecting to carry the flagship by boarding her from the gun-boats, which were all filled with men.  Steered by the master of the fleet, Mr. Gaze, who had sailed with Lord Exmouth in every ship he commanded from the beginning of the war, the Queen Charlotte proceeded silently to her position.  At half-past two, she anchored by the stern, just half a cable’s length from the Mole-head, and was lashed by a hawser to the mainmast of an Algerine brig, which lay at the entrance of the harbour.  Her starboard broadside flanked all the batteries from the Mole-head to the Light-house.  The Mole was crowded with troops, many of whom got upon the parapet to look at the ship; and Lord Exmouth, observing them as he stood upon the poop, waved to them to move away.  As soon as the ship was fairly placed, and her cables stoppered, the crew gave three hearty cheers, such as Englishmen only can give.  Scarcely had the sound of the last died away, when a gun was fired from the upper tier of the eastern battery; and a second, and a third followed in quick succession.  One of the shots struck the Superb.  At the first flash, Lord Exmouth gave the order, “Stand by!” at the second.  “Fire!” The report of the third gun was drowned in the thunder of Queen Charlotte’s broadside.