The artillery available for the defence appeared very powerful, for besides that of the shipping, and the guns in the Catalina, there were in the island twelve pieces, comprising four twenty-four-pounders, and two ten-inch mortars; and in the town there were six field-pieces and four coehorns on the east front. An eighteen-pounder was on the Gusmans, a howitzer on the portcullis tower, and two field-pieces were kept behind the town in reserve for sallies; but most of the artillery in the island was mounted after the investment, so that two twenty-four-pounders and two mortars only, could take part in the defence of the town; and as the walls and towers of the latter were too weak and narrow to sustain heavy guns, only three field-pieces and the coehorns did in fact reply to the enemy’s fire. SIEGE OF TARIFA. The garrison, including six hundred Spanish infantry and one hundred horse of that nation, amounted to two thousand five hundred men, and was posted in the following manner. Seven hundred were in the island, one hundred in the Catalina, two hundred in the convent, and fifteen hundred in the town. On the 19th of December the enemy having driven in the advanced posts, were encountered with a sharp skirmish, and designedly led towards the eastern front. The 20th the place was invested, but on the 21st a picquet of French troops having incautiously advanced towards the western front, captain Wren of the eleventh suddenly descended from the Catalina and carried them off. In the night the enemy approached close to the walls, but the next morning captain Wren again came down from the Catalina, and, at the same time, the troops sallied from the convent, with a view to discover the position of the French advanced posts. So daring was this sally that Mr. Welstead of the eighty-second actually pushed into one of their camps and captured a field-piece there; and although he was unable to bring it off, in face of the French reserves, the latter were drawn by the skirmish under the fire of the ships, of the island, and of the town, whereby they suffered severely and could with difficulty recover the captured piece of artillery from under the guns of the north-east tower. In the night of the 22d the anticipations of the British engineer were realized. The enemy broke ground in two places, five hundred yards from the eastern front, and assiduously pushed forward their approaches until the 26th; but always under a destructive fire, to which they replied with musketry, and with their wall-pieces, which killed several men, and would have been very dangerous, but for the sand-bags which captain Nicholas, the chief engineer at Cadiz, had copiously supplied. This advantage was however counterbalanced by the absence of the ships which were all driven away in a gale on the 23rd.