battalions by an accidental explosion, they drove the remnants of the grenadiers back into the covered way. If the failure to carry the breach was to be redeemed even partially, it was essential that the covered way should remain in the attackers’ hands, and round this part of the fortifications raged a fierce fight, in which both sides showed splendid courage; but, after three hours’ indecisive combat, Douglas found that his men had used nearly all their ammunition, and drew off to camp with a loss of at least five hundred dead and a thousand wounded. In this unsuccessful assault the XVIIIth suffered severely;[10] more than a hundred sergeants, corporals, and “sentinels” (as private soldiers were then termed) were killed or wounded, and, though the officers of the regiment who left accounts of this war are not agreed as to the exact casualties among the commissioned ranks, it appears certain that six were killed and eight wounded.[11] Though all their names have not been recorded, it is known that Captain Charles Brabazon, Lieutenant P. Latham, and Ensign ---- Smith were killed; Lieutenant-Colonel G. Newcomb (or Newcomen) died of his wounds, and Colonel the Earl of Meath, Lieutenants R. Blakeney and C. Hubblethorne, were wounded. Dispirited by his reverse, William raised the siege, ordered his army into winter quarters, and after handing over the command to Ginkell, a Dutch general, returned to England after a campaign in which he had scored only one marked success--the victory at the Boyne. He had failed to capture Athlone and Limerick, and, with the exception of Waterford, all the ports in the south and west were still open to the French navy. In September, however, the arrival of Marlborough with an expedition from England improved the situation: Cork and Kinsale surrendered, and thus the harbours of Limerick and Galway alone remained available for the enemy’s operations. Ginkell’s first step was to establish himself on a line which, starting at Ballyshannon in the north-west, ran through Enniskillen, Longford, Mullingar, Cashel, and Fermoy to Castletown-Berehaven in the south-west. The regiment was ordered to Mullingar, where it passed the winter--very unpleasantly, according to Stearne, who states that, “in the month of December our garrison being reinforced by several regiments of Horse and Foot, marched towards the enemy’s frontier, where after having fatigued the troops for upwards of three months in this bad season of the year in ravaging and burning the country we returned to our quarters.”