My mind was a prey to the utmost anxiety, when I beheld the overwhelming masses which Regnier was pouring forward on the last solitary hold of Ferdinand, cut off by the stormy Strait of Messina from all Sicilian succour. A strong brigade of cavalry, the 23rd Light Infantry, the 1st, 62nd, and 101st Regiments of the French line, together with a powerful battering train, formed his force; but as each corps consisted of three battalions, he mustered more than 6,000 foot alone. The "handful" of the British 62nd, amounting now to only 200 file, were to encounter them: but proud of my corps, and feeling all the glorious ardour of my profession glowing within me—relying on the indomitable English spirit of my soldiers, and the great natural strength of the position we occupied—I did not despair of at least protracting a siege; which, when the great disparity of numbers is remembered, must be deemed as glorious a deed of arms as our military annals exhibit. On the morning of the 11th February, five 24-pounders, five 18-pounders, four mortars, and innumerable field-pieces, opened a tremendous cannonade on the keep and upper works of Scylla, to demolish our cover and bury us with our guns under the ruins. This battering continued daily, without a moment’s cessation, until the 14th; when, covered by it, the French sappeurs and artillerists formed two other breaching batteries, at two hundred yards distance from our bastions: notwithstanding the appalling slaughter made among them by our shells bursting, and grape-shot and musketry showering around, with deadly effect. Though the whole of Regnier’s infantry remained under cover during these operations, the execution done on those who worked at the breaching batteries must have been fearful: they were so close and so numerous. My own brave little band was becoming thin from the fire from the heights: every cannon-shot which struck the stone walls was rendered, in effect, as dangerous as a shell, by the heavy splinters it cast on every side; and I foresaw that the castle of Ruffo—mouldering with the lapse of years, and shaken by the storms and earthquakes of centuries—would soon sink before the overwhelming tempest of iron balls which Regnier hurled against it from every point: his gunners stopping only until their cannon became cool enough to renew the attack. We had expected great assistance from our flotilla of gun-boats; which, by keeping close in shore, might have cannonaded the enemy’s position, and shelled their approaches; but a storm of wind and rain, which continued without cessation or lull from the time the attack began until it was ended, rendered an approach to Scylla impossible: the sea was dashing against it in mountains of misty foam, and on its walls of rock would have cast a line-of-battle ship like a cork.