the right—who had served in many a fight as a military adventurer in maintaining the royal cause both of Portugal and Spain against insurgents ranked on the side of powerful pretenders—was commended by Major-General Jones for his zealous conduct and intelligent assistance to his officers. A party of sailors thrown into the trenches worked exceedingly well. Indeed, without their help the repairs to the 21-gun battery could not have been completed. The man-o’-war’s-man labours in his own way, and does it with so much heartiness that, however singular and incautious may be his modes of proceeding, he achieves his end in time. Five of the seamen were wounded, but none of the sappers, though equally exposed, were hurt. Just as the sappers were paraded at the engineer hut in the first parallel to return to camp, an artillery officer appeared and represented that the embrasures of No. 11 battery—the only work which raked the picket-house ravine—needed immediate attention. The news was not pleasant to men who had performed a fatiguing night’s labour. Feeling the hardship of this extra duty, the engineer officer was disinclined to order any of his sappers to undertake the repairs, and so, calling for volunteers, his wishes were instantly met by several willing men offering for the service. Such unhesitating renunciation of themselves was deservedly applauded. Corporal Joseph Lockwood, lance-corporal Samuel Varren, and privates John Jaffray and Charles Carlin, passing from No. 5 by the trench which rounded No. 9, pushed onwards by the continued communication into No. 11, and leaped into the embrasures. In about two hours, with such old materials as they could find, they patched up the shapeless cheeks in as solid a form as the urgency of the occasion permitted. The repairs were necessarily of a rustic character, for wooden and iron gabions, sandbags, fascines, earth, and loose stones—the available litter of the battery, in fact—were all employed in tinkering the breaches. From the moment the Russians perceived the sappers in the openings, a steady fire of Miniés was maintained against them, and a couple of furious shells burst in their rear; but they passed untouched from the trenches, and their exertions and resource were acknowledged by Major-General Jones in brigade orders.