At the dawn of day on the 10th, the approach of the enemy was announced by a discharge of Congreve rockets from several barges and a launch, which had taken their station, on the east side of the town, and out of reach of the battery. Several volunteers, with small arms and the four pounder, hastened across the point, supposing the enemy were attempting a landing. Colonel Randall of the 13th regiment, who at the time was moving towards the battery with a detachment of militia, ordered them to assist the volunteers in drawing over one of the 18 pounders to the extreme end of the point; the fire of which in a few minutes compelled the barges to seek safety in flight. During this time the brig was working up towards the Point, and soon after sunrise came to anchor, short of half a mile from the battery, (or more correctly, the breastwork). Our ammunition being soon exhausted, the guns were spiked, and the men who fought them, being only about 15 or 20,[5] retired, leaving them behind for want of strength to drag them off. The brig now continued deliberately to pour her 32 pound shot and grape into the Village, without our having the power of returning a shot, for an hour, and the bomb ketch occasionally threw in shells. A fresh supply of ammunition being obtained, the 18 pounder was withdrawn from the breastwork, the vent drilled, and the piece taken back again, when such an animated and well directed fire was kept up, that at 3 o'clock the brig slipped her cable and hauled off, with her pumps going, having received several shots below her water line, and considerable damage in her spars, &c. During this action between the eighteen pounder and the brig, Mr. Frederick Denison was slightly wounded in the knee,[6] by a fragment of a rock, and Mr. John Miner, badly burnt in his face by the premature discharge of the gun. The flag, which was nailed to the mast, was pierced with seven shot holes,[7] the breast-work somewhat injured, and 6 or 8 of the dwelling-houses in the vicinity essentially injured. At this time a considerable body of militia had arrived, and Brigadier-General Isham[8] had taken the command; the inhabitants had recovered from the consternation of the first moments; and were deliberately moving off their furniture and goods. At 1 o'clock the Ramilies and Pactolus had taken stations about two and a half miles from the town, when resistance appearing hopeless, the Magistrates as a last resort applied to the General for permission to send a flag off, being impressed with the opinion that there must exist some latent cause of a peculiar nature to induce a commander who had heretofore distinguished himself for a scrupulous regard to the claims of honorable warfare,--to induce him to commit an act so repugnant to sound policy, so abhorrent to his nature, so flagrant an outrage on humanity. The General, we understand, would not sanction, nor did he absolutely prohibit, a flag being sent.