On the 21st the garrison mounted several field-guns, and at night fired heavily with grape and shells on the workmen digging the musketry trench. The 22nd this fire was redoubled, yet the besiegers worked with little loss, and their musketeers galled the enemy. In the night the battery was armed with two eighteen-pounders and three howitzers, and the secret battery within the horn-work was commenced; but Wellington, now deviating from his first plan, directed an escalade against the first line. In this view, at midnight four hundred men with ladders were secretly posted in a hollow road, fifty yards from the wall, which was from twenty-three to twenty-five feet high without flanks; and to aid this main column, a Portuguese battalion was assembled in the town of Burgos for a flank attack. SECOND ASSAULT. (Sept. 1812.) In this assault, although the Portuguese were repelled by the fire of the common guard, the principal party, composed of detachments under Major Lawrie, entered the ditch, yet altogether and confusedly; Lawrie was killed, the soldiers who mounted the ladders were bayoneted, combustible missiles were thrown down in abundance, and the men gave way, leaving half their number behind. The wounded were brought off next day under a truce, and it is said, that on the body of an officer the French found a complete plan of the siege. It was a very disastrous attempt, which delayed the regular progress for two days, increased the enemy’s courage and produced a bad effect upon the troops, some of whom were already dispirited by the storm of the horn-work. The original plan being now resumed, the hollow way from whence the escaladers had advanced, running along the front of defence, was converted into a parallel, and the trench made deep and narrow to secure them from the plunging shot of the castle. Musketeers were also planted to keep down the enemy’s fire. But heavy rains incommoded the troops, and the French raised a palisaded work on their own right, which flanked this parallel, and from thence they killed so many of the besiegers’ marksmen that the latter were withdrawn. In the night a flying sap from the right of the parallel was pushed within twenty yards of the first line; but the directing engineer was killed, and with him many men, for the French plied their musketry sharply, and rolled large shells down the steep side of the hill. The head of the sap was indeed so commanded as it approached the wall, that a six-feet trench, added to the height of the gabions above, scarcely protected the workmen; wherefore the gallery for a mine was worked as rapidly as the inexperience of the miners would permit.