The Middy was then put about, so as to bring the thirty-two-pounder to bear upon the battery, and again opened fire upon the rebels; for Captain Bankhead expressed his purpose to clean out the enemy from their position. As the battery did not reply, she was moved up nearer, so that one of the twenty-four-pounders could also command the spot. After firing for half an hour without eliciting any response from the rebels, the Middy went down the river again, and placed herself in different positions to tempt the enemy to renew the action; but the battery was still silent. The quarter-boat on the starboard side was then cleared away; and Mr. Hayswell, the first-lieutenant, was ordered on shore to examine the position. “Somers, you will go in the boat. Mr. Hayswell may want such a person as you are to assist him,” said Captain Bankhead. “Thank you, sir.” “Take a pistol and cutlass with you, and don’t be reckless.” “Ay, ay, sir.” The boat contained twelve men besides the officer, and pulled to the nearest point of land, just below the battery, where it could be covered in case of necessity by the guns of the steamer. Mr. Hayswell with eight of the men landed, and cautiously made their way up to the battery. They found a rude earthwork; but there was not a gun to be seen: and it was evident that the fort had been manned by a battery of light-artillery, which had decamped when the fire became too warm for the gunners. A short distance from the thicket in which the gunners had been concealed, there was the mansion-house of a plantation, with its village of negro-huts in the vicinity. It was important to know in what direction the battery had gone; for Mr. Hayswell concluded that it had gone farther up the river, to open upon the steamer from another position. The party, therefore, advanced towards the mansion, but with the utmost care, to avoid falling into an ambush or any other trap which the rebels might have set for them. “Bress de Lord, massa! De jubilee am come!” shouted a negro, stepping out from a cabin as the party approached the negro-huts. Mr. Hayswell at once proceeded to question the negro in regard to the battery which had occupied the earthwork. The man was very willing to give any information in his power; but unfortunately he knew nothing, except that the rebels had taken the road which he pointed out. It was a cross-road leading from the main highway; and the battery might have gone up or down the river,--he could not tell which. Mr. Hayswell then decided to visit the mansion-house, leaving the negro very much depressed in spirits because “de jubilee” had not yet come, and five hundred slaves were not to be carried off by the little Middy.