On the same day that the Royal Irish left Antwerp a French General, Löwendahl, appeared before Ostend with 21,000 good troops, a numerous artillery, and 5000 pack horses, laden with fascines for the siege; he finished his first parallel on the 14th of August, and next day threw up batteries on the shore to enfilade the harbour and to keep at a distance the British frigates which hovered about the port. After thus cutting off Ostend from communication with England he pushed on his works with vigour, and on the 18th twenty pieces of artillery and ten or twelve mortars opened a violent cannonade which lasted for four days almost without intermission. The defending troops were greatly overworked; half of them were constantly at the batteries or in the covered way; the remainder had to be ready to turn out at a moment’s notice, and as there were no casemates or bomb-proofs, the only shelter for the men when off duty was in barracks and private houses, which rapidly crumbled under the French projectiles. The officers were rather better off, for they shared with the sick and wounded the cellars of the town-hall, made shell-proof with walls of sandbags. All ranks were vilely fed; the officer of the XVIIIth who wrote the anonymous ‘Continuation of Stearne’s Journal’ says “the beef stank, the biscuits were full of maggots.” There were not enough artillerymen to man the guns; when the gun carriages were knocked to pieces by round shot there were none in reserve to replace them, and by the end of the siege only seven pieces of ordnance remained fit for use. Three days after the bombardment began de Chanclos wrote gloomily to Cumberland-- “This town is a heap of ruins ... the great fatigue, and entire absence of quiet, night or day, owing to bomb-shells and cannon-balls, put the garrison into very bad humour, and it is really not saying too much to call it bad. I might even add that one must be an Englishman to put up with what we are suffering here! The enemy is sapping up to the covered way and is attacking on our weakest side. Nearly all our cannon have been dismounted, many artillerymen have been killed and the survivors decline to work the guns.” He thus reported the loss of the town: “_August 24._ “On the night of the 22nd a general assault was made on our covered way by fifteen companies of Grenadiers, supported by two battalions. The point chosen was the sea front at low water. We repulsed the enemy more than once, killing and wounding 500 men, and making prisoners of 2 captains, a lieutenant, and 30 odd grenadiers. At day break I assembled my commanding officers to obtain their opinion as to our situation. Everyone agreed that we could not hope to hold out for more than a few days.”