Tarifa then was worth the efforts made for its defence; and setting aside the courage and devotion of the troops, without which nothing could have been effected, the merit chiefly appertains to sir Charles Smith, the captain of engineers. That officer’s vigour and capacity overmatched the enemy’s strength without, and the weakness and cajolement of those who did not wish to defend it within. Skerrett could not measure a talent above his own mark, and though he yielded to Smith’s energy, he did so with avowed reluctance, and dashed it with some wild actions, for which it is difficult to assign a motive; because he was not a dull man, and he was a brave man, as his death at Bergen-op-Zoom proved. But his military capacity was naught, and his mind did not easily catch another’s enthusiasm. Tarifa was the commentary upon Taragona. [Sidenote: Appendix, No. VI. Section 3.] During the siege, the engineer’s works in front were constantly impeded by colonel Skerrett; he would call off the labourers to prepare posts of retreat, and Smith’s desire to open the north-gate, (which had been built up,) that the troops might have egress in case of escalade, was opposed by him, although there was no other point for the garrison to sally, save by the sea-gate which was near the castle. On the 29th of December a shell, fired from the eighteen-pounder in the tower of the Gusmans, having bursted too soon, killed or wounded one of the inhabitants, and a deputation of the citizens came to complain of the accident; Colonel Skerrett, although the breach was then open, immediately ordered that gun, and a thirty-two-pound caronade, which at four hundred yards looked into the French batteries, to be dismounted and spiked! and it was done! To crown this absurd conduct, he assigned the charge of the breach entirely to the Spanish troops, and if Smith had not insisted upon posting the forty-seventh British regiment alongside of them, this alone would have ruined the defence; because hunger, nakedness, and neglect, had broken the spirit of those poor men, and during the combat general Copons alone displayed the qualities of a gallant soldier.