We started, then, one fine night, reached the belt of reef far away from the fort, landed, and walking through the water, which was half way up to our thighs at the start, we bent our course towards the fort, taking soundings before us, as we went, with long sticks.  We found much the same depth everywhere, and a sandy bed covered with short seaweed.  The sea had doubtless cast all the sand by degrees over the coral reef, and the currents had levelled it.  After a long and tiring march through the water, during which we had to stop and take breath every now and again, whispering to each other, like Raffet’s engraving of a similar reconnaissance, “Smoking is forbidden, but you can sit down if you like,” we had got quite close to the glacis when we heard a shout of “Alerta!” from the sentries.  Commandant Mangin, who was determined to touch the glacis with his hand, was a few steps ahead of us.  Suddenly a noise arose within the fort, and in the twinkling of an eye we saw about fifty soldiers appear on the crest of the glacis, with their musket barrels glancing.  They rushed down at full speed and sprang into the water after us.  We of course made off as fast as ever we could.  For some minutes it was a downright trial of speed, and Commandant Mangin was all but caught.  But though hostilities were imminent, they had not yet actually begun.  So the soldiers did not fire, and they soon tired of pursuing us.  We got back without any difficulty, except that great fishes, whose every movement was visible in the phosphorescent water, would rush between our legs.  Sharks, perhaps!  There were numbers of them in those parts.

The admiral had learnt what he wanted to know.  A few days more and the ball opened.  The admiral brought the three frigates, Nereide, Gloire, and Iphigenie (this last came back from Havana with her crew completed by that of Duquesne’s brig), and the two bomb-vessels, broadside on, and attacked the fort.  I had asked leave to share in the fun, and, to my great grief, he had refused it.  He considered my ship too small and insignificant.  “I can’t possibly take you.  I have put the frigate Medee aside too, for I don’t consider her guns heavy enough.”  He sent me to watch the firing of the bomb-vessels, and rectify it if necessary.

Before the firing began an incident occurred in which I was directly concerned.  As the attack appeared imminent, the ships anchored or moored close to the fort hastened away, and they all passed close to the point where I was posted.  At that moment the admiral signalled to me, “Ship in sight looks suspicious; stop her” Ambiguous as our signalling code is, this order seemed evidently to point to seizing one or several of the vessels just leaving the port.  Of these there were four, to wit, a Belgian ship, chartered by the admiral to take off the French subjects resident at Vera Cruz if they should be threatened.  It could not be that one.  Then there was an American vessel, a quasi warship, flying a pennant and armed,