They gave the alarm, seized their arms, and closed
fiercely and desperately with my left wing, which was composed of the
white men.
These suffered a great deal, and broke their ranks, but I wheeled round
and surrounded the fellows with my Shoshones, who did not even use their
rifles, the lance and tomahawk performing their deadly work in silence,
and with such a despatch in ten minutes but few of the miserable
islanders lived to complain of their wounds. My Mexicans, having
rallied, seized upon Fonseca, and destroyed many of the pirates in their
beastly state of intoxication. Only a few attempted to fight, the
greater number staggering towards the beach to seek shelter in their
boats. But the Apaches had already performed their duty; the smallest
boats they had dragged on shore, the largest they had scuttled and sunk.
Charging upon the miserable fugitives, they transfixed them with their
spears, and our victory was complete.
The pirates remaining on board the two vessels, perceiving how matters
stood, saluted us with a few discharges of grape and canister, which did
no execution; the sailors, being almost all of them runaway Yankees,
were in all probability as drunk as their companions on shore. At last
they succeeded in heaving up their anchors, and, favoured by the land
breeze, they soon cleared the bay.
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