'At this moment a gun was fired from the head of the old Mole, and as its direction was towards the _Vengeance_, I went on board. 'Now to give you an idea of the powers I had as a spectator of the coming conflict, I must tell you that the Mole of Genoa is semicircular, all the land rises in hills and terraces from the water, and the ship lay in that part of the semicircle next the Porta della Lanterna, and not above 300 to 400 yards from the whole field of battle. You will see what a good view I had of all the affair, and that all the shot from the opposing batteries passed over, or round the ship. 'On arriving on board, I saw that the light troops of General La Marmora were carefully and slowly descending from the heights, and driving in the outposts of the citizens; it was very pretty to see the way in which these men conducted the proceedings. First of all, they are very picturesque troops, having on their heads a hat which has a long flowing feather (which is a gamecock's tail dyed green); figure to yourself the rifle men in the _Freischutz_, and you have the men before you. Singly and silently did these men advance, peeping over every wall, making every bank a cover, and killing or wounding at almost every shot; while the citizens were crouching in confused groups, and as a man of the group fell from the unseen shot, the rest ran away, fired on from ten to twelve points, and thus dispersed. On all this I looked as upon a map. The consequence of all this was, that in about three hours 120 light troops, the general, La Marmora in person, which was all of his army that had arrived, took possession of the suburb of Genoa up to the first barricade of the town; but behind, and cut off, was the fortress of the gate, the key of Genoa, which the National Guards still held. 'About this time as the troops of La Marmora were seen on the heights, the town battery on the Mole had opened its fire, but no reply could be made to it; as yet La Marmora had no guns over the wall. 'About 1 o'clock P.M. three cheers and a shot from a gun showed that he had mounted his first piece of ordnance on the height above the gate. During the night the fire was kept up between this one gun and the guns on the town mole head. 'I must now pause to let you know that many refugees were on board, and as the fight thickened, I had no doubt that the morrow would fill the ship with folks of all nations and both sexes. 'During the night a portion of La Marmora's advanced guard had arrived, and a battalion of light troops as well as one of infantry had got over the wall. He now made his attack on the gate, which was soon taken; some few escaped to the seaside and hid themselves in the rocks, but the greater part were killed. He also pressed forward along the road towards the city's first strong position, but his men got on but slowly, for the houses and points that afforded cover were well contested, and he lost many men.