General Eliott in his despatch on this sortie, observes, “The pioneers,” meaning artificers, “and artillerists, made wonderful exertions, and spread their fire with such amazing rapidity, that in half an hour, two mortar batteries of ten 13-inch mortars, and three batteries of six guns each, with all the lines of approach, communication, traverses, &c. were in flames and reduced to ashes. Their mortars and cannon were spiked, and their beds, carriages, and platforms destroyed. Their magazines blew up one after another, as the fire approached them.”[16] ----- Footnote 16: London Gazette, 12,256. 25 to 29 December, 1781. ----- Shortly after the sortie the repairs to the defences at the north front and other works of the fortress, found full employment for the company. Leisure could not be permitted, and the necessary intervals of rest were frequently interrupted by demands for their assistance, particularly in caissonning the batteries at Willis’s.[17] Sickness also set in about this time; nearly 700 of the garrison were in hospital; the working parties were curtailed; and officers' servants and others, unused to hard labour and unskilled in the use of tools, were sent to the works to lessen the fatigue to which their less-favoured comrades were constantly subjected. Much extra duty and exertion were thus necessarily thrown upon the company, and though frequently exposed to imminent danger, they worked, both by night and day, with cheerfulness and zeal. In the sickness that prevailed, they did not share so much as might be supposed from the laborious nature of their duties, sixteen only being returned sick, leaving eighty-one available for the service of the works. ----- Footnote 17: To narrate the different services performed by the company during the siege, would not only be tedious, but necessarily incomplete, from no _detailed_ record of them being preserved. A reference, however, to ‘Drinkwater’s History,’ though particularization is not even there attempted, will afford a tolerable idea of their labours. ----- On a fine day in May 1782, the Governor, attended by the Chief Engineer and staff, made an inspection of the batteries at the north front. Great havoc had been made in some of them by the enemy’s fire; and for the present they were abandoned whilst the artificers were restoring them. Meditating for a few moments over the ruins, he said aloud, “I will give a thousand dollars to any one who can suggest how I am to get a flanking fire upon the enemy’s works.” A pause followed the exciting exclamation, when sergeant-major Ince of the company, who was in attendance upon the Chief Engineer, stepped forward and suggested the idea of forming galleries in the rock to effect the desired object. The General at once saw the propriety of the scheme, and directed it to be carried into execution.[18] ----- Footnote 18: