The bombardment of Cartagena does not succeed, for though the
city is nearly destroyed, the forte are not yet taken. General Ceballos therefore proposes to storm them, but the fleet will not help, a Council of Admirals having decided that it cannot force a way into the harbour. It is whispered that ‘a mutiny is feared in the fleet, and certainly something strange is going on, Admiral Chicarro's policy being apparently to peep at the insurgents, and then return to coal at Alicante. Admiral Yelverton in his place would have been shelling the lunatic post- man commanding Fort Galeras long before this. The Italian captain of the Anthion asked permission of the Madrid Com- missioner to take away the women and children, and received it, but a British Intransigente, named Peters, declared that if any foreign vessels went out without an order from the Junta he, as commanding the Numancia, would sink them. He, in fact, was preparing big guns to do it, when the Italian captain, jumping on the poop of his own ship, cried to the crew of the Numancia that if fired on he should fire back, that he should be sunk, but that be- hind him were 20 Italian ironclad& Peters was accordingly pulled off the poop and declared to be drunk, and the Anthion steamed on ; but Peters has been reappointed to his own ship, the Darro. If an English sailor of Intransigente opinions can really get hold of the Niunancia and take her out to sea, there will be wild work somewhere.
Previous page
