On the 12th we were employed in the trenches, from whence we picked off the enemy’s gunners. The riflemen, also, taking advantage of a thick fog, did great execution; but in the night the weather was so cold and the besieged shot so briskly, that little progress was made. Two days afterwards, the enemy, having observed that the men in the trenches went off in a disorderly manner on the approach of the relief, made a sally, and overturned the gabions of the sap; they even penetrated to the parallel, and were upon the point of entering the batteries, when a few of the workmen getting together, checked them until a support arrived, and thus the guns were saved. This affair, together with the death of the engineer on duty, and the heavy fire from the town, delayed the opening of the breaching batteries; but at half past four in the evening, twenty-five heavy guns battered the rampart, and two pieces were directed against the convent of Francisco. The spectacle was sublime. The enemy replied by more than fifty pieces; the bellowing of eighty large guns shook the ground far and wide; the smoke rested in heavy columns upon the battlements of the place; the walls crashed to the blow of the bullet; and when night put an end to this turmoil, the quick clatter of musketry was heard like the 155pattering of hail after a peal of thunder; for the 40th regiment assaulted and carried the convent of Francisco, and established itself on the suburb on the left of the attack. On the 17th the firing on both sides was very heavy, and the wall of the place was beaten down in large cantles; but several of the besiegers’ guns were dismounted, their batteries injured, and many of their men killed. General Borthwick, the commandant of the artillery, was wounded, and the sap was entirely ruined. Even the riflemen in the pits were at first overpowered with grape; yet towards evening they recovered the upper hand, and the French could fire only from the more distant embrasures. In the night the battery intended for the lesser breach was armed, and that on the Lower Teson raised, so as to afford cover in the day-time. On the 19th it was reported that both breaches were practicable, and a plan of attack was immediately formed.