“Well, they retreated, and we made prisoners of those whose boats having been cut up, were struggling in the water. Among others, there was a fine looking fellow, a petty officer, who had been wounded by the same shot that had sunk the boat; so I got him up to the hospital-tent, and cut off his leg above the knee, and having made him comfortable, (!) walked out upon the beach, with my assistant for a stroll. We had not gone far, when we were both thrown upon our backs by a violent shock which momentarily stunned us. On recovering ourselves, we observed the air filled with cotton descending like feathers. We did not know how to account for the phenomenon, till, advancing some distance farther, we found a soldier lying apparently dead, with his musket by his side. I stooped down, and found that the man was wounded in the head, a splinter having lodged just over the temple. As I drew out the splinter, he raised himself, and stared stupidly about him. I asked him what he was doing there?—“I’m standing ground over the tent, sir,” he replied. What tent?—“Why sir, the tent that had the gunpowder in it.” How came it to blow up—what set it on fire?—“I don’t know, sir.” Did nobody come along this way?—“Yes, sir; a man came along with a cigar in his mouth, and asked if he might go in out of the sun; I told him, yes!—and he went in, and sat himself down—and that is the last that I recollect, until I found you standing over me here.” Upon going a few hundred feet farther, we found a part, and still farther on, the remainder of the body of the unfortunate man, who ignorantly had been the cause of the explosion, as well as his own death. He was so completely blackened and burnt that it would have been impossible, from his colour, to have distinguished him from a negro.” * * * * *