Early in March a more minute survey of the general state of the whole of the defensive works was made, when it appeared that the force then assigned was quite inadequate, and that to secure it against the efforts of the enemy, twenty thousand soldiers, and a series of redoubts and batteries, requiring the labour of four thousand men for three months, were absolutely necessary; and yet an unaccountable apathy prevailed. In vain did the English engineers present plans, and offer to construct works: the Spaniards would never consent to pull down a house or destroy a garden; and had the enemy been then prepared to press 86onward vigorously, the city must have been lost by procrastination so fatal. One word more for Matagorda. The capture of this place by a few intrepid men has been mentioned. Though frequently cannonaded, it had been held fifty-five days, and contributed to prevent the completion of the enemy’s works at the Troccadero Point. This small fort, of a square form, without a ditch, with bomb-proofs insufficient for the garrison, and with one angle projecting towards the land, was little calculated for resistance; and, as it could only bring seven guns to bear, a Spanish seventy-four and an armed flotilla were moored on the flanks to co-operate in the defence. The French had, however, raised great batteries behind some houses on the Troccadero, and, as daylight broke on the 21st of April, a hissing shower of heated shot falling on the seventy-four and in the midst of the flotilla, obliged them to cut their cables and take shelter under the works of Cadiz. Then the fire of forty-eight guns and mortars of the largest size was concentrated upon the little fort of Matagorda, and the feeble parapet disappeared in a moment before this crashing flight of metal. The naked rampart, and the undaunted hearts of the garrison, remained; but the troops fell fast, the enemy shot quick and close; a staff, bearing the Spanish flag, was broken six times in an hour, and the colours were at last fastened to the angle of the work itself; while the men, especially the sailors, besought the officers to hoist the British ensign, attributing the slaughter to their fighting under a foreign flag. Thirty hours the tempest lasted, and sixty-four men out of one hundred and forty were down, when General Graham sent boats to carry off the survivors. The bastion was then blown up, under the direction of Major Lefebre, an engineer of great promise; and he also fell,—the last man whose blood wetted the ruins thus abandoned. 87 THE HEROINE OF MATAGORDA.