artillery was deficient in guns and stores of every kind, and the three thousand infantry, insufficient for the perimeter they had to guard, were not soldiers of the same nation commanded by generals of their own army, but detachments of British, of Austrians, and of Dutch--men with no common language and dissimilar in discipline, habits, and sentiment. These differences, sufficiently serious in themselves, were accentuated by the undisguised contempt of the English for the Allies who had left them in the lurch at Fontenoy. Nor were these the only difficulties. An essential part in the scheme of defence was the flooding of a large tract of country round the town, but this measure had not been carried into effect, for the Austrians, unwilling to ruin the peasants by inundating the villages and farms, were so slow in issuing the necessary orders that when at length labourers were sent to open the sluices, the French were close at hand and prevented the working parties from accomplishing their task. To have defended Ostend successfully would have taxed the powers of a great leader of men, and none arose to snatch the reins of office from the hands of the governor, a veteran grown old and decrepit in the Austrian service. The General appointed to command the British arrived after the town was invested, and was unable to make his way into Ostend; an Austrian officer of the same rank, de Chanclos, was more fortunate, but though he acted as confidential adviser to the Governor he had not the time, even if he possessed the capacity, to weld the heterogeneous garrison into a good fighting force.