While this was going on, the fleet had anchored before the city, and opened a very heavy cannonade, which was answered with equal spirit from sixty pieces of artillery which garnished the fortifications. The troops on board, however, made good their landing, and soon joined themselves to their victorious countrymen, descending from the sierra. They then pushed forward in all haste towards Oran, proposing to carry the place by escalade. They were poorly provided with ladders, but the desperate energy of the moment overleaped every obstacle; and planting their long pikes against the walls, or thrusting them into the crevices of the stones, they clambered up with incredible dexterity, although they were utterly unable to repeat the feat the next day in cold blood. The first who gained the summit was Sousa, captain of the cardinal's guard, who, shouting forth "St. Jago and Ximenes," unfurled his colors, emblazoned with the primate's arms on one side, and the Cross on the other, and planted them on the battlements. Six other banners were soon seen streaming from the ramparts; and the soldiers leaping into the town got possession of the gates, and threw them open to their comrades. The whole army now rushed in, sweeping everything before it. Some few of the Moors endeavored to make head against the tide, but most fled into the houses and mosques for protection. Resistance and flight were alike unavailing. No mercy was shown; no respect for age or sex; and the soldiery abandoned themselves to all the brutal license and ferocity, which seem to stain religious wars above every other. It was in vain Navarro called them off. They returned like bloodhounds to the slaughter, and never slackened, till at last, wearied with butchery, and gorged with the food and wine found in the houses, they sunk down to sleep promiscuously in the streets and public squares. [12]
The sun, which on the preceding morning had shed its rays on Oran, flourishing in all the pride of commercial opulence, and teeming with a free and industrious population, next rose on it a captive city, with its ferocious conquerors stretched in slumber on the heaps of their slaughtered victims. [13] No less than four thousand Moors were said to have fallen in the battle, and from five to eight thousand were made prisoners. The loss of the Christians was inconsiderable. As soon as the Spanish commander had taken the necessary measures for cleansing the place from its foul and dismal impurities, he sent to the cardinal, and invited him to take possession of it. The latter embarked on board his galley, and, as he coasted along the margin of the city, and saw its gay pavilions and sparkling minarets reflected in the waters, his soul swelled with satisfaction at the glorious acquisition he had made for Christian Spain. It seemed incredible, that a town so strongly manned and fortified, should have been carried so easily.