Next day, however, the French repaired the damage and mounted more guns, whose fire proved so damaging that Captain West had to move further from the shore. The assailants had established a marked superiority over the fire of the besieged, and availed themselves of it by pushing out parallels nearer to the town, and building four more breaching batteries. With these additional resources they began to work serious damage in the unstable bastions of the citadel. They also knocked a hole in the Fort of the Trinity: but the breach was so far from the foot of the wall that it was still almost inaccessible, the heaps of rubbish which fell into the ditch did not even reach the lowest part of the gap. On the twenty-first the _Excellent_ was relieved by the _Fame_, and Captain West handed over the task of co-operating with the Spaniards to Captain Bennett. The latter thought so ill of the state of affairs, that after two days he withdrew his marines from the Trinity Fort, an action most discouraging to the Spaniards. But at this juncture there arrived in the bay the _Impérieuse_ frigate, with her indefatigable commandant Lord Cochrane, a host in himself for such a desperate enterprise as the defence of the much-battered town. He got leave from his superior officer to continue the defence, and manned the Trinity again with his own seamen and marines. They had hardly established themselves there, when the Italian brigade of Mazzuchelli made a second attempt to storm the fort: but it was repulsed without even having reached the foot of the breach.