On the 5th, at five o’clock in the evening, while the working parties were extending the lodgements, three hundred French came swiftly down the hill, and sweeping away the labourers and guards from the trenches, killed or wounded a hundred and fifty men, got possession of the old breach, destroyed the works, and carried off all the tools. However in the night the allies repaired the damage and pushed saps from each flank to meet in the centre near the second French line, and to serve as a parallel to check future sallies. Meanwhile the howitzers on the San Michael continued their fire, yet ineffectually, against the palisades; the breaching battery in the horn-work also opened, but it was badly constructed, and the guns being unable to see the wall sufficiently low, soon ceased to speak, the embrasures were therefore masked. On the other hand the besieged were unable, from the steepness of the castle-hill, to depress their guns sufficiently to bear on the lodgement at the breaches in the first line, but their musquetry was destructive, and they rolled down large shells to retard the approaches towards the second line. On the 7th the besiegers had got so close to the wall below that the howitzers above could no longer play without danger to the workmen, wherefore two French field-pieces, taken in the horn-work, were substituted and did good service. The breaching battery on San Michael’s being altered, also renewed its fire, and at five o’clock had beaten down fifty feet from the parapet of the second line; but the enemy’s return was heavy, and another eighteen-pounder lost a trunnion. However in the night block-carriages with supports for the broken trunnions were provided, and the disabled guns were enabled to recommence their fire yet with low charges. But a constant rain had now filled the trenches, the communications were injured, the workmen were negligent, the approaches to the second line went on slowly, and again Dubreton came thundering down from the upper ground, driving the guards and workmen from the new parallel at the lodgements, levelling all the works, carrying off all the tools, and killing or wounding two hundred men. Colonel Cocks, promoted for his gallant conduct at the storming of San Michael, restored the fight, and repulsed the French, but he fell dead on the ground he had recovered. He was a young man of a modest demeanour, brave, thoughtful, and enterprising, and he lived and died a good soldier.