The following is the intendant Bigot’s account of the effect of the 111 New England fire: “The enemy established their batteries to such effect that they soon destroyed the greater part of the town, broke the right flank of the King’s Bastion, ruined the Dauphin Battery with its spur, and made a breach at the Porte Dauphine [West Gate], the neighboring wall, and the sort of redan adjacent.”[115] Duchambon says in addition that the cannon of the right flank of the King’s Bastion could not be served, by reason of the continual fire of the enemy, which broke the embrasures to pieces; that when he had them repaired, they were broken to pieces (_démantibulés_) again,--and nobody could keep his ground behind the wall of the quay, which was shot through and through and completely riddled.[116] The town was ploughed with cannon-balls, the streets were raked from end to end, nearly all the houses damaged, and the people driven for refuge into the stifling casemates. The results were creditable to novices in gunnery. The repeated accidents from the bursting of cannon were no doubt largely due to unskilful loading and the practice of double-shotting, to which the over-zealous artillerists are said to have often resorted.[117] It is said, in proof of the orderly conduct of the men, that not one 112 of them was punished during all the siege; but this shows the mild and conciliating character of the general quite as much as any peculiar merit of the soldiers. The state of things in and about the camp was compared by the caustic Dr. Douglas to “a Cambridge Commencement,” which academic festival was then attended by much rough frolic and boisterous horseplay among the disorderly crowds, white and black, bond and free, who swarmed among the booths on Cambridge Common. The careful and scrupulous Belknap, who knew many who took part in the siege, says: “Those who were on the spot have frequently, in my hearing, laughed at the recital of their own irregularities, and expressed their admiration when they reflected on the almost miraculous preservation of the army from destruction.” While the cannon bellowed in the front, frolic and confusion reigned at the camp, where the men raced, wrestled, pitched quoits, fired at marks,--though there was no ammunition to spare,--and ran after the French cannon-balls, which were carried to the batteries, to be returned to those who sent them. Nor were calmer recreations wanting. “Some of our men went a fishing, about 2 miles off,” writes Lieutenant Benjamin Cleaves in his diary: “caught 6 Troutts.” And, on the same day, “Our men went to catch Lobsters: caught 30.” In view of this truant disposition, it is not surprising that the besiegers now and 113 then lost their scalps at the hands of prowling Indians who infested the neighborhood. Yet through all these gambols ran an undertow of enthusiasm, born in brains still fevered from the “Great Awakening.”