The marvellous contentment with which the troops bore privations, which they saw were necessary; the good-humour and discipline they always displayed, save on the occasion just mentioned, when anger drove them into marauding, and intoxication produced its usual effect on troops; the extraordinary coolness and courage they displayed during even the worst part of the bombardment, a courage which was even foolhardy, and had to be restrained; all these make this siege one of the noblest chapters in England's military history. Although the blockade commenced in 1779, it was April, 1781, before the bombardment from the Spanish lines, which drove the miserable townspeople from their houses for shelter to the south of the Rock, can be said to have regularly commenced. When it did commence, it did so in earnest; shells filled with an inflammable matter were used, which set the buildings on fire; and a graphic description of a bombarded town may be found in Drinkwater's pages. "About noon, Lieutenant Budworth, of the 72nd Regiment, and Surgeon Chisholme, of the 56th, were wounded by a splinter of a shell, at the door of a northern casemate in the King's Bastion. The former was dangerously scalped, and the latter had one foot taken off, and the other leg broken, besides a wound in the knee.... Many casks of flour were brought into the King's Bastion, and piled as temporary traverses before the doors of the southern casemates, in which several persons had been killed and wounded in bed.... In the course of the day, a shell fell through the roof of the galley-house, where part of the 39th and some of the 12th Regiments were quartered; it killed two, and wounded four privates.... In the course of the 20th April, 1781, the Victualling Office was on fire for a short time; and at night, the town was on fire in four different places.... On the 21st, the enemy's cannonade continued very brisk; forty-two rounds were counted in two minutes. The Garrison Flag-staff, on the Grand Battery, was so much injured by their fire, that the upper part was obliged to be cut off, and the colours, or rather their glorious remains, were _nailed_ to the stump.... On the 23rd, the wife of a soldier was killed behind the South Barracks, and several men wounded.... On the 24th, a shell fell at the door of a casemate in the King's Bastion, and wounded four men _within_ the bomb-proof.... The buildings at this time exhibited a most dreadful picture of the results of so animated a bombardment. Scarce a house north of Grand Parade was habitable; all of them were deserted. Some few near Southport continued to be inhabited by soldiers' families; but in general, the floors and roofs were destroyed, and only the shell left standing.... A shell from the gunboats fell in a house in Hardy Town, and killed Mr. Israel, a very respectable Jew, with Mrs. Tourale, a female relation, and his clerk.... A soldier of the 72nd Regiment was