In January the fourth company, second battalion, moved from Antwerp to Ypres, where they were quartered in the bishop’s palace and adjoining convent, which had been sacrilegiously converted by the French into an engineer establishment. The defences of Ypres had not been repaired since the fortress was taken by the French in 1794. Two considerable breaches were in the body of the place and the various outworks were in a dilapidated condition. The officers of engineers and the company were employed in restoring the works to a state to resist a field attack or a coup-de-main. This last contingency, however, was not calculated upon until Napoleon had regained the capital and the royal family fled to the frontier. The startling intelligence was announced to the resident engineer—Captain Oldfield—at six o’clock one evening, and by the same hour next morning, parties of sappers under two officers of engineers had opened the sluices and covered, with inundations, the two breaches on the Bailleul front. Immediately after, large military parties under the direction of the sappers and the officers of royal engineers commenced the work of strengthening the fortress, and further assisted by labourers of all ages intermixed with stout women and sturdy girls from the town and adjacent villages, the fortress was renewed with singular despatch. Sub-Lieutenant Adam, who was appointed assistant engineer, superintended the restoration of the body of the place near the Lille gate and the outworks in front of the Menin and Dixmude gates; he also attended to the repairs of the communication boats and bridges, barriers, posterns, &c. With the exception of the sappers, the garrison was entirely composed of foreign troops who could not speak a word of English, and as the sappers had only mastered a few elementary snatches of the Flemish language, the duty of superintendence was not accomplished without difficulty.