It was in vain that the English engineers presented plans, and offered to construct the works; the Spaniards would never consent to pull down a house, or destroy a garden; their procrastination, paralized their allies, and would have lost the place, had the enemy been prepared to press it vigorously. Nor were the English works (when the Spaniards would permit any to be constructed) well and rapidly completed, for the Junta furnished bad materials, there was a paucity of engineer-officers, and, from the habitual negligence of the ministerial departments at home, neither the proper stores, nor implements had been sent out. Indeed, an exact history, drawn from the private journals of commanders of British expeditions, during the war with France, would show an incredible carelessness of preparation on the part of the different cabinets. The generals were always expected to “make bricks without straw,” and thus the laurels of the British army were for many years blighted. Even in Egypt, the success of the venerable hero, Abercrombie, was due, more to his perseverance and unconquerable energy before the descent, than to his daring operations afterwards. Additional reinforcements reached Cadiz the 31st of March, and both sides continued to labour, but the allies slowly and without harmony, and, the supplies being interrupted, scarcity increased, many persons were forced to quit Cadiz, and two thousand men were sent to Ayamonte to collect provisions on the Guadiana. But now Matagorda, which, though frequently cannonaded, had been held fifty-five days, impeded the completion of the enemy’s works at the Troccadero point. This small fort, of a square form, without a ditch, with bomb-proofs insufficient for the garrison, and with one angle projecting towards the land, was little calculated for resistance, and, as it could only bring seven guns to bear, a Spanish seventy-four and an armed flotilla were moored on the flanks, to co-operate in the defence. The French had however raised great batteries behind some houses on the Troccadero, and, as daylight broke, on the 21st of April, a hissing shower of heated shot, falling on the seventy-four, and in the midst of the flotilla, obliged them to cut their cables and take shelter under the works of Cadiz. Then the fire of forty-eight guns and mortars, of the largest size, was concentrated upon the little fort of Matagorda, and the feeble parapet disappeared in a moment before this crashing flight of metal. The naked rampart and the undaunted hearts of the garrison remained, but the troops fell fast, the enemy shot quick and close, a staff, bearing the Spanish flag, was broken six times in an hour, and the colours were at last fastened to the angle of the work itself, while the men, especially the sailors, besought the officers to hoist the British ensign, attributing the slaughter to their fighting under a foreign flag. Thirty hours the tempest lasted, and sixty-four men out of one hundred and forty were