heroic efforts by the crew to warp free. Her captain, Christopher Atkins, had vowed upon leaving England to “give those fantastic scoundrels a good banging who have dared to treat the mother country with impunity and ingratitude.” Now Captain Atkins faced his own banging. At three p.m., Moultrie ordered his guns silenced after hearing that Clinton had landed between Fort Sullivan and Thomson’s outpost; for ninety minutes, until the report was disproved, all powder was reserved for the infantry to contest an enemy beachhead. Scores of frigate balls smacked the palmetto curtain and bastions,
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