A battery mounting two guns at the end of the pier protected the mouth of the harbor; and there was a guard of a sergeant and twelve invalids, who were stationed there to man the guns upon the approach of an enemy. It would be difficult to describe the confusion which took place as soon as the two vessels were fairly alongside the wharf, and made fast with hawsers to the massive iron rings which had for centuries been fixed in the ponderous stones of which the pier was composed. There was the mayor with his cocked hat on, but his leather apron still tied in front, for he had been working at his calling; there was the sergeant of the invalids, who, perhaps, was a greater man than the mayor, all beard and mustachios, but so thin in his person that he looked as if a stout breeze would have blown him away; and there were the soldiers leaning on their muskets. These were the most important personages, but they were backed by the whole population of the town, amounting to about three hundred men, women, and children, all talking, jabbering, and screaming. Add to them the captain of the privateer, so important that he could not attend to even the mayor or the sergeant; and the privateer's men, dressed in every fashion, armed to the teeth, all explaining, or pushing away, or running here and there obeying orders; then the wounded men--for they had several men killed and others hurt in the conflict with the cutter--handed up one by one, bandaged here and there, and exciting the compassion and even screams of the women; the prisoners, who had been ordered to come on deck, half dressed and chapfallen; the sails of the vessels only clewed up, and still fluttering; ensigns and pennants hoisted upon every mast, and waving over the heads of the crowd assembled at the pier--and you may have some idea of the confused and bustling scene. [Illustration: THE ARRIVAL OF THE PRIVATEER AT LANION.--Marryat, Vol. X., p. 841.]