On the 23d the sea blockade being null the French vessels returned to France with the badly wounded men. This day the besiegers judging the breach between the towers quite practicable turned the guns, at the suggestion of general Oswald, to break the wall on the right of the main breach. Major Smith opposed this, urging, that no advantage would be gained by making a second opening to get at which the troops must first pass the great breach; that time would be thus uselessly lost to the besiegers, and that there was a manifest objection on account of the tide and depth of water at the new point attacked. His counsel was overruled, and in the course of the day, the wall being thin the stroke heavy and quick, a second breach thirty feet wide was rendered practicable. The defensive fire of the besieged being now much diminished, the ten-inch mortars and sixty-eight pound carronades were turned upon the defences of the great breach, and upon a stockade which separated the high curtain on the land front, from the lower works of the flank against which the attack was conducted. The houses near the breach were soon in flames which spread rapidly, destroyed some of the defences of the besieged and menacing the whole town with destruction. The assault was ordered for the next morning. But when the troops assembled in the trenches the burning houses appeared so formidable that the attack was deferred and the batteries again opened, partly against the second breach, partly against the defences, partly to break the wall in a third place between the half bastion of St. John on the land front and the main breach. [Sidenote: Bellas, &c.]