The only disgraceful circumstance which occurred during the whole siege was the desertion of ten officers in a body, two of whom were men of noble birth; they had been plotting to make the governor capitulate, and finding their intentions frustrated, went over to the enemy in open day. Except in this instance, the number of deserters was very small. Towards the end of November many of the inhabitants, having become utterly hopeless of relief, preferred the chance of death to the certainty of being made prisoners, and they ventured to pass the enemy’s lines, some failing in the attempt, others being more fortunate. At this time Samaniego, who was first surgeon to the garrison, delivered in to Alvarez a report upon the state of ♦NOV. 29.♦ health: as he gave it into his hands, he said something implying the melancholy nature of its contents; Alvarez replied, “this paper then, perhaps, will inform posterity of our sufferings, if there should be none left to recount them!” He then bade Samaniego read it. It was a dreadful report. There did not remain a single building in Gerona which had not been injured by the bombardment; not a house was habitable; the people slept in cellars, and vaults, and holes amid the ruins; and it had not unfrequently happened that the wounded were killed in the hospitals. The streets were broken up; so that the rain water and the sewers stagnated there, and the pestilential vapours which arose were rendered more noxious by the dead bodies which lay rotting amid the ruins. The siege had now endured seven months; scarcely a woman had become pregnant during that time; the very dogs, before hunger consumed them, had ceased to follow after kind; they did not even fawn upon their masters; the almost incessant thunder of artillery seemed to make them sensible of the state of the city, and the unnatural atmosphere affected them as well as humankind. It even affected vegetation. In the gardens within the walls the fruits withered, and scarcely any vegetable could be raised. Within the last three weeks above 500 of the garrison had died in the hospitals; a dysentery was raging and spreading; the sick were lying upon the ground, without beds, almost without food; and there was scarcely fuel to dress the little wheat that remained, and the few horses which were yet unconsumed. Samaniego then adverted with bitterness to the accounts which had been circulated, that abundant supplies had been thrown into the city; and he concluded by saying, “if by these sacrifices, deserving for ever to be the admiration of history, and if by consummating them with the lives of us who, by the will of Providence, have survived our comrades, the liberty of our country can be secured, happy shall we be in the bosom of eternity and in the memory of good men, and happy will our children be among their fellow-countrymen!” ♦SOME OF THE OUTWORKS TAKEN BY THE FRENCH.♦