success. By daybreak they had gathered together about eighty marines,
eighty pikemen, and one hundred and eighty small-arm seamen; all the
survivors of those who had made good their landing. They obtained some
ammunition from the prisoners whom they had taken, and marched on to try
what could be done at the citadel without ladders. They found all the
streets commanded by field-pieces, and several thousand Spaniards, with
about a hundred French, under arms, approaching by every avenue. Finding
himself without provisions, the powder wet, and no possibility of
obtaining either stores or reinforcements from the ships, the boats
being lost, Troubridge with great presence of mind, sent Captain Samuel
Hood with a flag of truce to the governor to say he was prepared to burn
the town, and would instantly set fire to it if the Spaniards approached
one inch nearer. This, however, if he were compelled to do it, he should
do with regret, for he had no wish to injure the inhabitants; and he
was ready to treat upon these terms--that the British troops should
reembark, with all their arms of every kind, and take their own boats,
if they were saved, or be provided with such others as might be wanting;
they, on their part, engaging that the squadron should not molest the
town, or any of the Canary Islands: all prisoners on both sides to be
given up. When these terms were proposed the governor made answer, that
the English ought to surrender as prisoners of war; but Captain Hood
replied, he was instructed to say, that if the terms were not accepted
in five minutes, Captain Troubridge would set the town on fire and
attack the Spaniards at the point of the bayonet. Satisfied with his
success, which was indeed sufficiently complete, and respecting, like
a brave and honourable man, the gallantry of his enemy, the Spaniard
acceded to the proposal, found boats to re-embark them, their own having
all been dashed to pieces in landing, and before they parted gave every
man a loaf and a pint of wine.