interpreting his orders rather liberally, by ignoring those portions which related to operations in the chesapeake bay and along the southern coast of the colonies, hopkins led his fleet directly to the bahamas. the ships, minus "hornet" and , arrived at abaco in the bahamas on 1 march, and hopkins began laying plans for the raid on new providence. the fleet ran in to attempt a landing at the port of nassau but failed to achieve surprise. the landing, therefore, went forward several miles to the east of the town. "wasp" and covered the marines as they went ashore, but their guns never fired because the landing was not opposed. that afternoon, the landing force took fort montague and the following day captured the town of nassau and fort nassau. they took a large quantity of cannon—close to 90 pieces, and 15 brass mortars—but the governor had managed to foil the mission in its primary objective by spiriting away the bulk of the gunpowder which had been stored there. hopkins had to settle for 24 casks of powder out of the 174 originally stored there. the cannon and other military stores captured, however, more than justified the enterprise.