In the night of the 29th, ground was broken for a false attack against the Pardaleras, and the following night sixteen hundred workmen, with a covering party of twelve hundred, sank a parallel against the castle, on an extent of eleven hundred yards, without being discovered by the enemy, who did not fire until after daylight. The same night twelve hundred workmen, covered by eight hundred men under arms, opened a parallel four hundred and fifty yards from San Christoval, and seven hundred yards from the bridge-head. On this line one breaching, and two counter-batteries, were raised against the fort and against the bridge-head, to prevent a sally from that point; and a fourth battery was also commenced to search the defences of the castle, but the workmen were discovered, and a heavy fire struck down many of them. On the 31st the attack against the castle, the soil being very soft, was pushed forward without much interruption, and rapidly; but the Christoval attack, being carried on in a rocky soil, and the earth brought up from the rear, proceeded slowly, and with considerable loss. This day the British artillery company came up on mules from Estremos, and the engineer hastened the works. The direction of the parallel against the castle was such, that the right gradually approached the point of attack by which the heaviest fire of the place was avoided; yet, so great was the desire to save time, that before the suitable point of distance was attained, a battery of fourteen twenty-four-pounders with six large howitzers was marked out. [Sidenote: 1811. June.] [Sidenote: French Register of the Siege, MSS.] On the Christoval side, the batteries were not finished before the night of the 1st of June, for the soil was so rocky, that the miner was employed to level the ground for the platforms; and the garrison having mortars of sixteen and eighteen inches’ diameter mounted on the castle, sent every shell amongst the workmen. These huge missiles would have ruined the batteries on that side altogether, if the latter had not been on the edge of a ridge, from whence most of the shells rolled off before bursting, yet so difficult is it to judge rightly in war, that Phillipon stopped this fire, thinking it was thrown away! The progress of the works was also delayed by the bringing of earth from a distance, and woolpacks purchased at Elvas, were found to be an excellent substitute. In the night of the 2d, the batteries on both sides were completed, and armed with forty-three pieces of different sizes, of which twenty were pointed against the castle; the next day the fire of the besiegers opened, but the windage caused by the smallness of the shot, rendered it very ineffectual at first, and five pieces became unserviceable. However, before evening the practice was steadier, the fire of the fort was nearly silenced, and the covering of masonry fell from the castle-wall, discovering a perpendicular bank of clay.