The rest of the battalion were stationed behind a stone-wall, which encircled the churchyard, and in reserve behind the edifice, ready to make a charge of bayonets should the enemy succeed in breaking through this enclosure. Their advance were stationed behind a house, within two hundred yards of us, covered by their cannon at the brow of the hill, while we only possessed two mountain three-pounders, which were placed to the left of the church, to fire down a narrow lane which threatened our left flank. For some days previously, trifling working parties had been employed, of twenty or thirty men, in cutting down a small plantation in front of the church, which was so intersected by the trees entangled together, that the enemy never could have penetrated them; but the other entrenchments consisted of a few shovels of earth, negligently thrown up, which the French voltigeurs might have hopped over; and as for flank defences, they seemed not to have been thought of. At about one o'clock, P. M., the fourth division came to our support, and crowned a hill six hundred yards behind the château occupied by the rifle corps. During the night the whole of our regiment were hard at work, in throwing up a formidable battery in front of the churchyard, and before morning it was finished, with embrasures, regular _épaulements_, (filled up with small bushes, to make the enemy believe that it was a masked battery,) and traverses. Both our flanks were secured by felled trees, strewed about, and even at the back of the burial-ground, which was now impregnable against any sudden assault; nor do I believe six thousand men could have taken it. So much for the ingenuity of infantry soldiers, with their spades, shovels, pickaxes, bill-hooks, and hatchets. On the 11th, it was supposed that the Duke of Dalmatia intended to break the centre, by advancing against the church and château, (commonly called Arcangues); accordingly General Hope detached the right part of his force nearer to the left of our division; but the enemy again attacked, and obliged him to resume his original ground, where there was a good deal of firing, and many brave men fell on both sides, without any decided result. During this day, although the French advance was quite close to us, there was no firing; and we industriously profited by every moment of tranquillity to strengthen our position. At this juncture, two battalions of Nassau troops deserted into the British lines.