The 9th the first division took the trenches in hand. The place was encircled by posts to prevent any external communication, and at night twelve hundred workmen commenced three counter-batteries, for eleven guns each, under a heavy fire of shells and grape. Before day-light the labourers were under cover, and a ditch was also sunk in the front to provide earth; for the batteries were made eighteen feet thick at top, to resist the very powerful artillery of the place. On the 10th the fourth division relieved the trenches, and a thousand men laboured, but in great peril, for the besieged had a superabundance of ammunition, and did not spare it. In the night the communication from the parallel to the batteries was opened, and on the 11th the third division undertook the siege. This day the magazines in the batteries were excavated, and the approaches widened, but the enemy’s fire was destructive, and the shells came so fast into the ditch in front of the batteries, that the troops were withdrawn, and the earth was raised from the inside. Great damage was also sustained from salvos of shells, with long fuzes, whose simultaneous explosion cut away the parapets in a strange manner, and in the night the French brought a howitzer to the garden of the convent of Francisco, with which they killed many men and wounded others. On the 12th the light division resumed the work, and the riflemen taking advantage of a thick fog, covered themselves in pits, which they digged in front of the trenches, and from thence picked off the enemy’s gunners; but in the night the weather was so cold, and the besieged shot so briskly, that little progress was made. The 13th, the first division being on duty, the same causes impeded the labourers, and now also the scarcity of transport baulked the general’s operations. One third only, of the native carts, expected, had arrived, and the drivers of those present were very indolent; much of the twenty-four pound ammunition was still at Villa de Ponte, and intelligence arrived that Marmont was collecting his forces to succour the place. Wellington therefore changing his first plan, resolved to open a breach with his counter-batteries, which were not quite six hundred yards from the curtain, and then to storm the place without blowing in the counterscarp; in other words, to overstep the rules of science, and sacrifice life rather than time, for such was the capricious nature of the Agueda that in one night a flood might enable a small French force to relieve the place. [Sidenote: Vide page 328.]