Napoleon, having accomplished the great object of his exertions, the capture of Little Gibraltar, allowed himself not one moment for triumph, or repose, or regret; but, as regardless of the carnage around him, as if he were contemplating a field over which the scythe of the mower had passed, immediately prepared his guns to throw their plunging balls into the English ships, and to harass them at every point of exposure. No sooner did Lord Howe see the tricolored flag floating from the parapets of Little Gibraltar, than, conscious that the city was no longer tenable, he made signal for the fleet to prepare for immediate evacuation. The day was passed by the English in filling their ships with stores from the French arsenals, they having determined to destroy all the munitions of war which they could not carry away. The victorious French were straining every nerve in the erection of new batteries, to cripple and, if possible, to destroy the retiring foe. Thus passed the day, when another wintry night settled gloomily over the beleaguered and woe-exhausted city. The terror of the royalists was dreadful. They saw, by the embarkation of the British sick and wounded, the indications that the English were to evacuate the city, and that they were to be left to their fate. And full well they knew what doom they, and their wives and their children, were to expect from republican fury in those days of unbridled violence. The English took as many of the French ships of the line as could be got ready for sea, to accompany them in their escape. The rest, consisting of fifteen ships of the line and eight frigates, were collected to be burned. A fire-ship, filled with every combustible substance, was towed into their midst, and at ten o'clock the torch was applied. The night was dark and still. The flames of the burning ships burst forth like a volcano from the centre of the harbor, illumining the scene with lurid and almost noonday brilliance. The water was covered with boats, crowded with fugitives, hurrying, frantic with despair, in the abandonment of homes and property, to the English and Spanish ships. More than twenty thousand loyalists, men, women, and children, of the highest rank, crowded the beach and the quays, in a state of indescribable consternation, imploring rescue from the infuriate army of the republicans howling like wolves around the walls of the city, eager to get at their prey. In increase of the horror of the scene, a most furious cannonade was in progress all the time from every ship and every battery. Cannon balls tore their way through family groups. Bombs exploded upon the thronged decks of the ships, and in the crowded boats. Many boats were thus sunk, and the shrieks of drowning women and children pierced through the heavy thunders of the cannonade. Husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters were separated from each other, and ran to and fro upon the shore in delirious agony.