down, when general Graham, finding a diversion he had projected impracticable, sent boats to carry off the survivors. The bastion was then blown up, under the direction of major Lefebre, an engineer of great promise, and he also fell, the last man whose blood wetted the ruins thus abandoned. Here I must record an action of which it is difficult to say whether it were most feminine or heroic. A sergeant’s wife, named Retson, was in a casemate with the wounded men, when a very young drummer was ordered to fetch water from the well of the fort; seeing the child hesitate, she snatched the vessel from his hand, braved the terrible cannonade herself, and, although a shot cut the bucket-cord from her hand, she recovered the vessel, and fulfilled her mission.[8] [Sidenote: General Campbell’s Correspondence. MSS.] After the evacuation of Matagorda, the war languished at Cadiz; but Sebastiani’s cavalry infested the neighbourhood of Gibraltar, and he himself entered the capital of Murcia, on the 23d of April, when Blake retired upon Alicant and Carthagena. Meanwhile the French covered Matagorda point with batteries; but they were pressed for provisions, and general Campbell, throwing a detachment into Tarifa, drove their foragers from that vicinity, which abounds with cattle. The Spaniards at San Roque promised to reinforce this detachment, but their tardiness enabled the enemy to return with four hundred foot and some cavalry, and although the former were repulsed, the horse foraged the country, and drove off several herds of cattle during the action. General Campbell then increased the detachment to five hundred men, joining some guns, and placing the whole under the command of major Brown of the 28th.