On Captain Mayo’s notification to Perry of the results of the cannonade by navy guns, preparations for assault were continued. It had been agreed by General Scott and Commodore Perry that the storming party should consist of three columns, one of sailors and marines, one of the regulars, and one of volunteers. Perry had resolved to head his column in person, and had already ordered ladders made. The part assigned to the navy was to carry the sea front. Perry had also planned the storming, by boat parties, of the water battery of the castle so that its guns might be spiked. For this a dark night was necessary, and the waning of the moon had to be awaited. Perry was unable to get into the position which the French had occupied in 1839, because they had treacherously moved there in time of peace; as Courbet, in 1882, got into the Min river at Foo Chow, China. For the attack on the city, ladders were already finished. Having no other material at hand, the studding-sail booms of the _Mississippi_ had been sawed up, and the navy was ready. The volunteers were to enter through the breach made by the navy guns. The relief party from the ships under Captain, now Rear-Admiral Breese, took their places in the naval battery on the afternoon of the 25th, ready for another day’s work if necessary. But this was not to be. The Mexican governor ordered a parley to be sounded from the city walls at evening. The signal was not understood by our forces, and the mortars kept belching their fire all night long. The next morning, the 26th, a white flag was displayed; and at 8 A. M., all the batteries ceased their fire, and quietness reigned along our lines. A conference for capitulation was held at the lime kilns at Point Hornos. The commissioners from the army were General W. T. Worth, and Colonel Totten of the engineers,—Scott’s comrades-in-arms at Fort George in 1813—and General Pillow, who commanded a brigade of volunteers, from Tennessee. By this time, another frightful norther had burst upon land and sea. Communication with the ships could not be held, and so Perry could not be invited to sit with the commissioners, for which General Scott handsomely apologized. The navy, however, was represented by the senior captain, J. H. Aulick; while Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, a fluent scholar in Spanish, officiated as interpreter. These officers acted in the convention entirely independent of the authority of the General, as naval officers. The Mexican commandant’s propositions were rejected, and unconditional surrender was dictated and accepted. In the great norther of the 26th of March, twenty-six transports went ashore, and cargoes to the amount of half a million of dollars were lost. On the night of the frightful storm there was bright moonlight, and the vessels driving shoreward to their doom or dashing on the rocks were seen from the city.