Assembling the fleet at the head of the passes, after much difficulty in getting the heavy ships over the bar, Farragut ordered the ships to strip like athletes for battle. Down came mast and spar till nothing was left standing but lower masts,--and even those were taken out of some of the gunboats,--and soon everything best out of reach of shot was landed, leaving clear decks, and no top hamper to be cut away by the enemy's projectiles, and come tumbling down about the heads of guns' crews. About this time the English and French men-of-war that had lain before New Orleans, giving aid and comfort to the enemy and making merry in singing rebel songs on board, especially on board the English vessels, left the river, their officers declaring it an impossibility for the fleet to pass the forts and obstructions. In this connection, it may be mentioned that the cruisers of John Bull prowled along the coast during the entire war, with sometimes permission to enter the blockaded ports, conveying information and lending encouragement to the enemy, and rejoicing at every disaster that befell the Union arms, which, together with the tacit connivance of the British government in letting out the Alabama, and other hostile acts, ought to be treasured against Great Britain so long as the Republic endures. On the sixteenth of April, Farragut moved up to a point just below the forts, and on the eighteenth, having established the vessels of the mortar fleet at distances ranging from twenty-nine hundred and fifty yards to four thousand yards, from Jackson, and partially hidden by trees on one side the river, and disguised with bushes on the other, opened the bombardment, which was kept up with little interruption for six days and nights; the corvettes and gunboats taking part by turns in running up, delivering their fire, and dropping down with the current out of range again. The forts replied vigorously, and every night the enemy sent down fire-rafts, but to little purpose. Meanwhile, under cover of the night and the fire of the fleet, Fleet-Captain Bell, and Lieutenants-Commanding Crosby and Caldwell of the gunboats Pinola and Itasca, had succeeded in forcing a channel through the obstructions, a piece of duty that had required the most robust and dauntless courage, and in which Caldwell--a son of Massachusetts--shone pre-eminent by the coolness of his methods and thoroughness of his work. And now, on the night of the twenty-third, after a last examination by Caldwell in a twelve-oared boat, all was pronounced clear, and the fleet was to weigh at two o'clock in the morning.