The attack in the centre was pursued with the same vigour, and resisted with the same desperate determination. Every door, every staircase, every chamber was disputed; the ♦S. FRANCISCO TAKEN.♦ French abandoned all attacks to the left for the sake of concentrating their efforts here, that they might the sooner reach the Cozo, extend themselves along it to the right as far as the quay, and thus connect their operations with those of Gazan on the other side the Ebro: and these increased efforts were met with proportionate exertions by the Zaragozans. Grenades were thrown from one floor to another, and bombs were rolled among the enemy, when they were so near that the Spaniards who rolled them expected themselves also to perish by the explosion. Their resolution seemed, if it were possible, to increase with their danger; every spot was defended with more obstinacy than the last; and this temper would have been, as it deserved to be, invincible, if pestilence the while had not been consuming them faster than fire and sword. The sense of honour as well as of duty was carried to its highest point; the officers preferred dying upon the stations which they had been appointed to defend, rather than to live after having lost them, though every possible resistance had been made. On this side, after having occupied and been driven from the vaults of the Hospital, which had been reduced to ruins in the former siege, the enemy succeeded at length in carrying a gallery to the great convent of S. Francisco; ... a countermine was prepared, which compelled them to stop before they could get under the walls of the convent. The engineer, Major Breuille, immediately charged the mine with three thousand weight of powder, and fired it, having drawn by feigned preparations for an assault as many Spaniards as he could within the sphere of destruction. The explosion was terrible, and brought down part of the building: the enemy rushed through the breach, and making way into the church, formed an epaulement there to establish themselves. Some Zaragozans who were acquainted with the building got, by passages connected with the tower, upon the cornices of the church; others mounted the roof, and broke holes in it, and from thence they poured down grenades upon the invaders, and drove them from their post. The ruins of this convent, which had been burnt during the first siege, and now shattered by the mine, were disputed two whole days, till the defenders at length were driven from the last chapel by the bayonet. For the advantage now both in numbers and in physical power was on the side of the enemy, the pestilence having so wasted the Spaniards, that men ♦ROGNIAT, 36. CAVALLERO, 126.♦ enough could not be provided to man the points which were attacked without calling up from the hospitals those who had yet strength enough to use a weapon.