My wound was a dangerous one, having touched the bone. I was immediately sent home to camp, where I lay completely blind for several days. This, added to our disastrous defeat, threw me into a fever, and nearly cost me my life; but, with the aid of a kind Providence, and the advantage of a strong and unimpaired constitution, I soon recovered. Our engineer now gave up this side of the fort as perfectly hopeless, and we went more to the eastward, breaching a prominent bastion; but the whole fort was so constructed that one part protected the others; and therefore, wherever we breached we were sure of a destructive cross-fire. From our melancholy failures, our poor fellows became disheartened; scarcely a man had escaped without being wounded, and the sad recollection of their poor comrades that were left behind in a mutilated state, was the constant topic of conversation. Our mortification was greatly increased by seeing our men's clothing paraded on the ramparts, and worn by the miscreants in the fort. However, we still lived in the fond hope that our next effort would prove more successful. I could again go abroad, although my wound was by no means healed. It was now truly distressing to enter our men's tents, where, but a month before, the merry joke went round, and mirth and hilarity prevailed. Naught but gloomy faces, and even them but few, were to be seen: some had lost brothers; others, dear comrades; Captain Lindsay had lost his leg; Lieutenant Creswell had been cut to pieces; and every other officer was wounded. Our loss in killed and wounded in the two assaults, in our two companies alone, was nearly the one half of the total number. After the storm, our breaching-guns were again sent to the park to be re-bushed. This was a seasonable pause to enable us to recruit our shattered frames and spirits; but it also gave the enemy an opportunity of repairing and reinforcing every point of attack.