They told me there were about three thousand men in the attacking force. We had more than four thousand men under arms, which gave us the advantage of numbers. The city had no defences worthy the name and I insisted that the thing to do was to go outside and fight it out in the open, while the doughty General, who seemed to be seeking delay more than anything else, was in favor of making a rough-and-tumble of it in the town. The President, who had imbibed something of American ideas during his three years’ residence in New York, and who had apparently regained a little of his nerve while we were canvassing the situation, agreed with me, and, against the continued objections of his brother, we went out to meet the attacking army. Gen. Baez commanded our centre and right while I commanded our left flank. His reason for wanting to postpone the action was quickly apparent, for he was an arrant coward. He began to give way, before a force that was inferior in both numbers and discipline, with the firing of the first gun, and fell back so rapidly that before I realized it my command was flanked and almost cut off, with the sea on one side of us and the enemy on two others and rapidly closing up the fourth. My men fought surprisingly well until they suddenly discovered that they were almost surrounded, when they promptly went into a panic. Most of them dropped their guns and ran for the city, with an activity of which I had not dreamed them capable, while nearly all of the others, in regular South American fashion, about-faced and joined the rebels on the spot. In a few minutes I was captured, along with about a hundred men who were so numbed by fear that they could neither run nor fight, and had not enough discretion to join the enemy. I was furious over the cowardice of Baez and put up the hardest fight I was capable of, with the satisfaction of putting six or eight blacks on a permanent peace basis, but with my revolver empty and my sword broken I was overwhelmed by the inky cloud. Gen. Baez galloped back to the city and he and his bewildered brother, the President, had barely time to board a small schooner and sail for Curacoa before the capital was in the hands of the rebels. Gen. Ganier d’Aton, a tool of Pimental and Cabral, was at once proclaimed President, and hailed by the populace with the customary acclaim.