Whether the sergeant-major obtained the thousand dollars as a douceur from the General is a question never likely to be satisfactorily answered. The probability is, that he did not receive the reward for his suggestion in this form, but some daily allowance commensurate with his skill and the importance of the duty. I was informed by the late Quarter-master-sergeant Britton Francis, who possessed a remarkable memory, and whose father was in the company before him, that Ince contracted for the work, and—such was the story current in his day—received for all the excavations, one guinea per running foot! Judging from an expression in a letter from the Duke of Richmond to Captain Evelegh, the Commanding Engineer at Gibraltar, dated 4th August, 1784, this tradition is an extravagant exaggeration. His Grace observes, “I am told that the excavation of the galleries is now constructed for, all expenses included, at one rial per foot cube;” and he adds, “I am very glad to find that a work which promises to add such effectual defences to the place, can be carried on at so cheap a rate; and I make no doubt, that great improvements will still be made by the Governor in this system of defences and lodgment for stores and troops under the rock.” ----- Upon orders being issued by the Chief Engineer, twelve good miners of the company were selected for this novel and difficult service, and sergeant-major Ince was nominated to take the executive direction of the work. On the 25th of May, he commenced to mine a gallery from a place above Farringdon’s Battery (Willis'), to communicate, _through the rock_, to the notch or projection in the scarp under the Royal Battery. The gallery was to be six feet high and six feet wide. The successful progress of this preliminary work was followed by a desire to extend the excavation from the cave at the head of the King’s lines, to the cave at the end of the Queen’s lines, of the same dimensions as the former gallery. A body of well-instructed miners was expressly appointed for the duty,[19] and on the 6th July, they began this new subterranean passage. On the 15th, the first “embrasure was opened in the face of the rock communicating with the gallery above Farringdon’s.” To effect this, “the mine was loaded with an unusual quantity of powder, and the explosion was so amazingly loud, that almost the whole of the enemy’s camp turned out at the report: but what,” adds the chronicler, “must their surprise have been, when they observed whence the smoke issued!”[20] The gallery was now widened to admit of the placement of a gun with sufficient room for its recoil, and when finished, a 24-pounder was mounted in it.[21] Before the ensuing September, five heavy guns were placed in the gallery; and in little more than twelve months from the day it was commenced, it was pushed to the notch, where a battery, as originally proposed, was afterwards established and distinguished, on