[1] After pursuing the flying French for two days after the Battle of Maida, British General Sir John Stuart returned to Monteleone, and took measures for the recovery of the fortified posts round the extremity of the peninsula, chief of which was the Castle of Scylla.

For this purpose he despatched a brigade under Colonel John Oswald, with some light artillery and two Engineer officers (Captain J. T. Jones and Lieutenant Lewis), to commence operations against that post.

On the land side, which presented the only possible point of attack, the defences consisted of a bastioned front of unusually lofty profile, which completely defiladed the interior of the work.

This rapidity of construction was due to the fact that whilst the force was waiting for the guns a quantity of materials had been accumulated on the spot to form the mass of the parapets.

Captain Jones, who saw their condition before any steps had been taken to cleanse them, reported that from the indentations on the walls, and the marks of slaughter and destruction visible on all sides, the effects of the fire must have been most disastrous to the defenders.

[5] On the 19th he wrote a letter to Captain Burgoyne, R.E, dated from Messina, of which the following is an extract: Our artillery is all obliged to be dragged up a steep precipice, which of course throws upon the reduction of the place considerable difficulty.

Sir Sidney Smith dragged two twelves and a mortar up to a point at 700 yards distance, which was too far to be of great service; the gunboats also were of little or no use, tending, by the wildness of their fire, to encourage rather than dismay.

At daylight, however, I had the satisfaction to find myself well covered from musketry, of which they began from the castle a very plentiful play, which continued for about an hour and a half, until at last they were completely silenced by Dyneley with the howitzers, who threw almost every shell exactly over the spot.

He had observed that the rock at the back of the castle on the sea side could not be seen from any of the adjacent ground, and that boats from Messina would be covered from fire when they had arrived within from 600 to 700 yards (549 to 640 m) of the fort.

[7] Having taken prisoner or destroyed all French garrisons between Maida and the Straits of Messina, Stuart was transported by Smith back to Sicily, where they celebrated a successful campaign in Calabria.

[7] The climax was described by General Sherbrooke in his despatch of 23 February 1808: On the morning of the 15th inst., Lieutenant-Colonel Robertson having informed me by telegraph that the parapet of the work was destroyed, and that all his guns were dismantled or disabled, I felt very anxious indeed to withdraw the troops, but a continuance of the gale rendered this impracticable until the 17th, when, during a temporary lull (every necessary arrangement having previously been made), the transport boats, protected by the men-of-war's launches, ran over from the Faros and succeeded in bringing away the whole of the garrison, who effected their retreat by the sea staircase to the boats, when they were exposed to a most galling fire of grape and musketry from the enemy till such time as they could pull out of the reach of it.