On March 11, the Spaniards opened fire upon the _Mentor_, then lying in the harbor, from a battery on Santa Rosa island. She replied to the attack until she had received 28 shots from twenty-four pound guns, when she retired nearer the town. After this affair there were no further movements by the Spaniards until the eighteenth, when a brig and two galleons, taking advantage of a very favorable wind, sailed past the batteries defending the mouth of the harbor, without receiving any perceptible injury. Thinking they might sail up to the town, and find cover from some structures on the beach, General Campbell caused them to be burned down. On the nineteenth, the entire Spanish fleet, excepting a few vessels, sailed past the batteries, though subjected to a heavy fire from Red Cliff, which lasted for two hours. Galvez, even after he found himself in possession of the harbor with a fleet of 38 vessels, and a large land force, consisting not only of troops brought directly from Havana, but those also with which he had captured the posts west of the Perdido, sent to Havana for reinforcements; and remained inactive until they reached him on April 16. The reinforcement consisted of eighteen more ships, and an additional land force, with heavy siege artillery. Whilst awaiting that addition to his strength, a landing was attempted. The attempt was resisted by a body of Indians and a part of the garrison of Fort George with two field pieces of artillery. The Spaniards, taken by surprise, were driven to their boats. In the attack many were killed, and in the confusion of re-embarking others were drowned. On April 22, however, a second and successful attempt to land was made by the invaders, followed by the establishment of camps where batteries were to be erected. One of the camps, nearer the Fort and the town than the others, by its temerity invited rebuke. Accordingly, a surprise for it, to be executed on the twenty-third, was prepared, but defeated by a fanatic. On the night of the twenty-second, a Waldeck private reported to his captain, that a Waldeck corporal was missing, under circumstances which implied desertion; that the deserter was a Catholic, the only one in the regiment, the rest being Protestant; and that it had been suspected by his comrades that his fanaticism would lead him, on the first opportunity, to desert to his co-religionists. That the suspicion was well founded was manifested by the movements of the enemy the next morning.