At half-past ten o'clock, A. M., we took post within cannon range of the ramparts of St. Sebastian, immediately overlooking the river Urumea. The troops of the fifth division were already formed in the trenches cut across the isthmus, within a short distance of the body of the place, ready to move forward as soon as the tide should be sufficiently low to admit of a passage. It was so well known that the assault was to take place, that numerous inhabitants had flocked from the adjacent towns and villages, dressed in their holiday attire, and were already seated on the hill which commanded a panoramic view of the town. Many of the women were clothed in dresses of English calico, and in fact composed a motley group and mixture in dress and appearance, such as I had never before seen in Spain. Two pretty Spanish girls were seated on the slope of the hill, and offered us some of their sugar drops, whereupon we thought we might as well place ourselves beside them as elsewhere. A few minutes before the troops moved to the assault, all within the town seemed tranquil; no noise issued from its walls, nor was a single French soldier visible on the ramparts. Soon after eleven o'clock, the "forlorn hope," headed by Lieut. Mac Guire of the 4th regiment, sprang out of the trenches, followed by the storming party, and a brigade of the fifth division;[1] but, owing to the difficulty of extricating themselves from the trenches, and to their _extreme_ ardour, they ran towards the _great breach_, discharging their fire arms to the left, to keep down the musketry of the enemy, who galled them by a terrible flanking fire from a bastion which projected nearly parallel, and enfiladed their left flank while moving towards the breach. Lieut. Mac Guire wore a cocked-hat, with a _long white feather_, to make himself conspicuous. He was a remarkably handsome young man, active of limb, well-made, and possessing a robust frame. He ran forward, amid projectiles and a shower of bullets, with such speed that only _two_ soldiers could manage to keep within five or six yards behind him; and he actually jumped over the broken masonry, at the foot of the breach, before he fell. In a moment afterwards he was hid from our view by the column bounding over his body,[2] to climb the breach. They had no sooner gained the crest of the breach, than they found the enemy strongly entrenched at each flank of the TERRE-PLEIN of the rampart and the interior slope, composed of a scarped wall, nearly thirty feet deep, so that the brave soldiers who mounted the breach fell a sacrifice to their valour, by an overwhelming cross-fire.