The loss of the French was two hundred and forty men, that of the allies considerable; the companies of the ninth under colonel Cameron, alone, had seven officers and sixty men killed or wounded, and the operation although successful was an error. The battery erected on the right bank of the Urumea was not opened, wherefore, either the assault was precipitated or the battery not necessary; but the loss justified the conception of the battery. When the action ceased the engineers made a lodgement in the redoubt, and commenced two batteries for eight pieces to rake the horn-work and the eastern rampart of the place. Two other batteries to contain four sixty-eight-pound carronades and four ten-inch mortars were also commenced on the right bank of the Urumea. The 18th the besieged threw up traverses on the land front to meet the raking fire of the besiegers, and the latter dragged four pieces up the Monte Olia to plunge into the Mirador and other batteries on the Monte Orgullo. In the night a lodgement was made on the ruins of San Martin, the two batteries at the right attack were armed, and two additional mortars dragged up the Monte Olia. The 19th all the batteries at both attacks were armed, and in the night two approaches being commenced from the suburb of San Martin towards the cask redoubt the French were driven from that small work. On the 20th the whole of the batteries opened their fire, the greatest part being directed to form the breach. [Sidenote: Notes of the Siege by sir C. Smith, MSS.] Major Smith’s plan was similar to that followed by marshal Berwick a century before. He proposed a lodgement on the horn-work before the breach should be assailed, but he had not then read the description of that siege and therefore unknowingly fixed the breaching-point precisely where the wall had been most strongly rebuilt after Berwick’s attack. This was the first fault, yet a slight one because the wall did not resist the batteries very long, but it was a serious matter that sir Thomas Graham at the suggestion of the commander of the artillery began his operations by breaching. Major Smith objected to it, and sir R. Fletcher acquiesced reluctantly on the understanding that the ruining of the defences was only postponed, an understanding afterwards unhappily forgotten. The result of the first day’s attack was not satisfactory, the weather proved bad, the guns mounted on ship carriages failed, one twenty-four pounder was rendered unserviceable by the enemy, another became useless from an accident, a captain of engineers was killed, and the besiegers’ shot had little effect upon the solid wall. In the night however the ship-guns were mounted on better carriages, and a parallel across the isthmus was projected; but the greatest part of the workmen, to avoid a tempest, sought shelter in the suburb of San Martin and when day broke only one-third of the work was performed.