Thus opened an engagement which is memorable among the attacks of fleets upon land fortifications, and which fully justified Lord Exmouth's opinion that 'nothing can resist a line-of-battle ship's fire.' The Algerine tactics were to allow the British squadron to come to an anchor without molestation, and to board the vessels from their galleys while the British crews were aloft furling sails, for which purpose they had thirty-seven galleys fully manned waiting inside the mole. To the surprise of the enemy, however, the British admiral had given orders for the sails to be clewed from the deck, instead of sending men aloft for the purpose, and the British ships were thus able to open fire the moment they came to an anchor. The result of this smart seamanship was an instant disaster for the Algerines; their galleys were all sunk before they could make the few strokes of the oar which would have brought them alongside, and tremendous broadsides of grapeshot from the _Queen Charlotte_ and the _Leander_ shattered the entire flotilla, and in a moment covered the surface of the harbour with the bodies of their crews and with a few survivors attempting to swim from destruction. On the molehead the effect of the British fire was terrible; the people with whom it was crowded were swept away by the fire of the _Queen Charlotte_, which had ruined the fortifications there before the engagement became general, and then crumbled and brought down the Lighthouse Tower and its batteries. The _Leander's_ guns, which commanded the principal gate of the city opening on the mole, prevented the escape of any survivors. The batteries defending the mole were three times cleared by the British fire, and three times manned again. 'The Dey,' wrote a British officer on the _Leander_, 'was everywhere offering pecuniary rewards for those who would stand against us; eight sequins were to be given to every man who would endeavour to extinguish the fire. At length a horde of Arabs were driven into the batteries under the direction of the most devoted of the Janissaries and the gates closed upon them.' Soon after the battle began, the enemy's flotilla of gunboats advanced, with a daring which deserved a better fate, to board the _Queen Charlotte_, and a few guns from the latter vessel sent thirty-three out of thirty-seven to the bottom. Then followed the destruction of the Algerine frigates and other shipping in the port, which were set on fire by bombs and shells and burned together with the storehouses and the arsenal.