About three in the afternoon, the day, which had been sultry, became unusually cold; the sky was overcast, and between the blackness of the sky, the rain, and the smoke, it was as dark as a dusky evening; but when darkness would in its natural course have closed the town was in flames. A dreadful night of thunder and rain, and wind succeeded; and it was made far more dreadful by man than by the elements. It is no easy task for officers, after the heat of an assault, to restrain successful troops who are under no moral restraint; and on this day so many officers had perished that the men fancied themselves exempt from all control. They sacked the place, and gave way to such excesses that if the French could have suspected the state of drunkenness to which men so excellently brave in action had reduced themselves, they might very probably have retaken part of the town, if not the whole. The loss of the assailants amounted to nearly 1600 British and 800 Portugueze killed and wounded; 700 of the garrison were made prisoners. ♦THE FRENCH DEFEATED IN THEIR ATTEMPT TO RELIEVE IT.♦ On the morning of the assault the French made a second effort for the relief of S. Sebastian’s. Three divisions of Spaniards, under General Freyre, occupied the heights of S. Marcial on the left of the Bidassoa, and the town of Irun, thus covering the road to the besieged fortress. The position was exceedingly strong, the front and the left being covered by the river, and their right resting on the Sierra de Haya. They were supported by the first division of British infantry, under Major-General Howard, and by Lord Aylmer’s brigade on the left, and in the rear of Irun; and by Longa’s division near the Sierra in rear of their right. Still farther to secure them, Lord Wellington, knowing that during the 29th and 30th the enemy were assembling a large force at Vera, moved two brigades of the 4th division to the left of the Sierra, and occupied the heights on the right of that mountain, between the convent of S. Antonio and Vera; and Lezaca with a Portugueze brigade, to prevent it from being turned in that direction. On the 30th also he moved Major-General Inglis’s brigade to the bridge of Lezaca, and gave orders for the troops in the Puertos of Etchalar, Zugarramundi, and Maya, to attack the enemy’s weakened post in front of their positions.