Buckingham and his officers “blinded themselves with looking” for the first signs of the coming of Holland’s fleet, but it came not. Endless difficulties had to be surmounted before it was ready to start, for men were hard to obtain and money still harder, and those charged with the fitting out of the expedition were deficient in both capacity and energy, though the King and Holland appear to have done their utmost to spur them on. At last, on October 19, Holland, with part of the expedition, sailed from Portsmouth, but was driven back to the coast by a storm. For ten days the wind blew strongly from the South-West; then on the 29th it changed, and the fleet again set sail, this time from Plymouth. But in the night a violent westerly gale came on, and it was again forced to return, with some of the ships severely damaged. Before the end of the first week of November, Buckingham, obliged to recognise that his position was fast becoming untenable, reluctantly yielded to the counsels of those who urged him to raise the siege. He could not, however, bring himself to abandon the prey which had been so nearly his, without one last attempt to seize it; and learning that Toiras had but 500 men left capable of bearing arms, he determined to endeavour to carry the place by assault, notwithstanding that almost from the first an assault had been regarded as a hopeless operation. The attempt was made on the morning of November 6. The raw troops who had landed in the island in July were by this time seasoned soldiers, and they advanced to the attack gallantly enough. But Toiras had been forewarned, probably owing to Buckingham’s want of reticence; and the assailants were received with a murderous fire, while huge stones were rained down upon them as they clambered up the rocky slope on which the fortress stood. When they reached the walls, their scaling-ladders were found to be too short; the troops from La Prée came out to threaten their rear, and they were obliged to retreat with the loss of several hundred men. During the following night, Schomberg, who had been waiting his opportunity for some days, sailed out of the Charente, evaded the English fleet and disembarked at Sainte-Marie, in the south-east of Ré, with his relieving army. Then, having been joined by the troops at La Prée, at the head of over 6,000 men he advanced towards Saint-Martin. Buckingham, however, had already raised the siege and retreated towards the Île de Loix, a narrow tongue of land separated from the rest of Ré by marshes and a canal, where he intended to re-embark.