Santa Clara, a rocky island off St. Sebastian, had been taken, and it was necessary to communicate with the officer of engineers there on a matter of great importance. It being broad daylight, no boat could venture across the bay without the certainty of being sunk. Corporal Thomas Evans therefore volunteered to execute the service. He immediately stripped himself, tied his cap round his neck with the despatch in it, and plunging into the stream, performed, under fire from the castle, this gallant exploit unscathed. The distance to the island was nearly a mile, and he returned with an answer in about an hour. The casualties at the siege were as follows:— At the sortie—one killed; private James Hicks: three taken prisoners,[200] one of whom, private Owen Connor, was wounded. In the trenches—four killed; second-corporals Findlay McDonald and Daniel Niblock, and privates Thomas Penhorwood and Peter Milne; Sub-Lieutenant Turner, wounded. First storm—five killed; privates Samuel Clarke, James Dunn, William Cormack, Jonathan Millar, and James Morris: one died of wounds, private Stephen Teaff. Second storm—four killed; second-corporal Henry Logan, privates Peter Walsh, John Flannagan, and Hugh Borland: twenty-nine wounded, of whom one died, second-corporal William Dodds. ----- Footnote 200: Corporal Charles Ford was one of the prisoners. He was of a respectable family, and had a brother a clergyman in the Church of England, presiding over the cure of the parish of Kilbeaconty in Ireland. In an article in the ‘United Service Journal,’ headed, “Captivity in San Sebastian,” Captain Harry Jones, R.E., who also had been taken prisoner, alludes to this non-commissioned officer. “In the course of the day,” he says, “I was asked whether I would like to speak to a corporal of sappers, who had been made a prisoner during the sortie. I was delighted at the prospect of seeing one of my old friends, but was greatly astonished, in the afternoon, by seeing a fine tall young man, a stranger, walking into the ward, dressed in a red jacket. He was the first sapper I had seen in the new uniform, as blue was the colour worn when I was taken prisoner. Upon inquiring when he joined the army from England, he replied, 'Yesterday morning. I was put on duty in the trenches last night, and was shortly afterwards brought into the town by the enemy.'”—‘United Service Journal,’ 1, 1841, p. 198. ----- Correct particulars of the wounded from the opening of the operations until the last assault cannot be obtained. The three prisoners taken at the sortie were returned to the corps on the 8th September. Not allowed, during their confinement, to throw up cover for their own safety, they were exposed in the castle, in the yard of the magazine, to all the fury of the siege.