Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/304

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as he did the ships of Stede Bonnet, the pirate, twelve years later, but for a threatening storm.

Nothing more having been heard of the allied fleet, the country militia was discharged. Then the news came that a French war-ship, commanded by Captain Pacquereau, had appeared in Sewee Bay with two hundred men. He had come to join Le Feboure, but was unaware of his commander's failure. On September 2d, Captain Fenwicke and his militiamen met the French landing party, killed fourteen and captured fifty prisoners. Colonel Rhett demanded and received the surrender of Pacquereau's ship, with ninety men aboard. Charleston had two hundred and thirty French and Spanish prisoners, but whether or not they died of yellow fever, Hewatt, the only historian of the time, does not say, and unfortunately Charleston could not boast of a newspaper until twenty-six years later. The failure of this first of three attempts to take Charleston by naval force proved that "the sinews of war are the sinews of valiant men," for its defenders were weakened by yellow fever and had neither full ranks nor strong fortifications. Doyle, the English historian, says:

"The settlers who held Charlestown against