“The enemy and we met several times underground and fought it out with bayonet and pistol, and in twelve days the French sprang sixteen mines, which blew up a great many of our men; and one mine did so much execution that it blew up part of the town wall, two branches of our trenches with a parallel between them, and ruined two of our mines, with a Captain and Lieutenant of our regiment and another officer and forty men, all of which happened on our attack.... Our miners discovered the branches of another mine, and as they were busy in finding out the mine itself, they heard the enemy at work in one of their galleries, whereupon a Lieutenant and twenty Grenadiers were ordered to dislodge them, but the Lieutenant being killed at the first onset the Grenadiers retired immediately; after that another officer with a fresh detachment was ordered for that service, but the enemy throwing a great many grenades and making a great smoke with combustible stuff, forced them to retire being suffocated. The next day, the miners being supported by a Lieutenant and sixteen Grenadiers, were at work, to pierce through a gallery they had discovered, but upon their breaking into it, the enemy threw in upon them a great quantity of straw, hemp, powder and other combustible matter, and being set on fire the Lieutenant and ten of the Grenadiers were stifled. After this manner was this terrible siege carried on, till by degrees we wrought ourselves almost into the ditch. The enemy sprang a mine which was their last effort, with which we had near four hundred men killed, but notwithstanding we lodged ourselves that night on our attack near their palisades, where we raised a prodigious quantity of cannon.” The citadel capitulated on the 3rd of September, after more than 3000 French officers and men had fallen. The besiegers’ casualties are given in Millner’s return as 1233 killed, 4055 wounded, or a grand total of 5288. Millner is not as clear as usual about the loss of the British, but it seems probable that 178 were killed and 521 wounded, or 699 of all ranks. To what extent the Royal Irish suffered it is impossible to say, but it is probable that in such continuous fighting more officers and men were placed _hors de combat_ than are mentioned in Stearne’s narrative.[58]