The moon had now risen, and though the sky was cloudy, we could see pretty well what was doing. I found my friend Robertson here, with the grenadier company of the Royals; I learned from him that the party, which was now commanded by Capt. Guthrie of the 33d regiment, had been compelled by numbers to retire from the bastion which the enemy now occupied, and should endeavour to maintain the one which they now possessed, until they could procure a reinforcement. He also told me of Gen. Skerret's being dangerously wounded and taken prisoner, an irreparable loss to our party, as Capt. Guthrie was ignorant of the General's intentions. In the mean time the enemy continued a sharp firing on us, which we returned as fast as our men could load their firelocks. Several of the enemy who had fallen, as well as of our own men, were lying on the ramparts; one of our officers, who had been wounded in the arm, was walking about, saying occasionally, in rather a discontented manner, "This is what is called honour;" though I could readily sympathise with him in the pain he suffered, I could not exactly understand how, if there is any honour in getting wounded, any bodily suffering can detract from it. We found a large pile of logs of wood on the rampart; these we immediately disposed across the gorge of the bastion, so as to form a kind of parapet, over which our people could fire, leaving, however, about half the distance open towards the parapet of the rampart. On the opposite side of the bastion were two twenty-four-pounders of the enemy's, which being raised on high platforms, we turned upon them, firing along the ramparts over the heads of our own party. However valuable this resource might be to us, we were still far from being on equal terms with the French, who besides greatly exceeding us in numbers, had also brought up two or three fieldpieces, which annoyed us much during the night. There was also a windmill on the bastion they occupied, from the top of which their musketry did great execution among us. In the course of the night, they made several ineffectual attempts to drive us from our position: on these occasions, which we always were aware of from the shouts they raised to encourage each other, as soon as they made their appearance on the rampart, we gave them a good dose of grape from our twenty-four-pounders, and had a party ready to charge them back. I observed our soldiers were always disposed to meet the enemy half-way, and the latter were soon so well aware of our humour, that they invariably turned tail before we could get within forty or fifty paces of them. The firing was kept up almost continually on both sides until about two o'clock in the morning, when it would sometimes cease for more than half-an-hour together. During one of these intervals of stillness, exhausted with our exertions, and the cold we felt in our drenched clothes, some of the officers and I lay down along the parapet together, in hopes of borrowing a