When the secret battery in the horn-work of San Michael was completed two eighteen-pounders were removed from the first battery to arm it, being replaced by two iron howitzers. The latter were used to drive the French marksmen from their offensive palisaded wall, but after firing one hundred and forty rounds without success the attempt was relinquished; and ammunition was so scarce that the soldiers were paid to collect the enemy’s bullets. A zigzag was now commenced in front of the first battery, down the face of San Michael, to obtain footing for a musketry trench to overlook the enemy’s defences below: the workmen were exposed to the whole fire of the castle at the distance of two hundred yards, and were knocked down fast, yet the work went steadily on. On the 26th the gallery was advanced eighteen feet and the soil found favourable; but the men, in passing the sap, were hit by the French marksmen, and an assistant engineer was killed. In the night the parallel was prolonged on the right to within twenty yards of the ramparts, in the view of driving a second gallery and mine; musketeers were then planted there and at the same time the zigzag was continued, and the musket trench completed with little loss, though the whole fire of the castle was concentrated on the spot. The 27th the French strengthened their second line, cut a step along the edge of the counterscarp for a covered way, and palisaded the communication. The besiegers finished the musketry trench on the right of their parallel, and opened a gallery for the second mine; but the first mine went on slowly, the men in the sap being galled by stones, grenades, and small shells, which the French threw into the trenches by hand; the artillery fire also knocked over the gabions of the musketry trench on San Michael so fast that the troops were withdrawn during the day. In the night a trench of communication, forming a second parallel behind the first, was begun and nearly completed from the hill of San Michael, but at daylight the French fire was heavy, and the shells which passed over came rolling down the hill again into the trench. The completion of the work was therefore deferred until night, and though the back roll of the shells continued to gall the troops, this, and the other trenches in front of the horn-work, above and on the right of the parallel below, were filled with men whose fire was incessant: the first mine also was completed, and being loaded with a thousand pounds of powder, and the gallery strongly tamped for fifteen feet with bags of clay, another storm was ordered. THIRD ASSAULT. (Sept. 1812.)