The writer is but brought to mention the battle because he must needs follow, in all events, the fortunes of the humble adventurer whose life lie records.

Yet this necessarily involves some general view of each conspicuous incident in which he shares.
Several circumstances of the place and time served to invest the fight with a certain scenic atmosphere casting a light almost poetic over the wild gloom of its tragic results.

The battle was fought between the hours of seven and ten at night; the height of it was under a full harvest moon, in view of thousands of distant spectators crowning the high cliffs of Yorkshire.
From the Tees to the Humber, the eastern coast of Britain, for the most part, wears a savage, melancholy, and Calabrian aspect.

It is in course of incessant decay.

Every year the isle which repulses nearly all other foes, succumbs to the Attila assaults of the deep.