So the attempt failed, and though the fire was steadily continued, the attack was practically exhausted; and the preliminaries of peace, signed in February 1783, were welcomed by all. The famous siege had lasted three years, seven months, and twelve days. The loss suffered by the garrison amounted to 1231 men, and 205,328 shot were fired during that time. But other regiments embarked for local or special service were also meanwhile earning naval honours for the army. The 6th Regiment showed conspicuous gallantry in the attack on Fort Monjuich at Barcelona. The 6th, 9th, 11th, 17th, 33rd, and 36th Regiments also served at Almanza in 1707, and the 6th also at Saragossa; while nothing can exceed the gallantry of the defence of the Castle of Alicante by a regiment now disbanded, when the officers refused to surrender, and drank the health of good Queen Anne in a bastion over the mine that a few minutes later blew the castle nearly in pieces! Again, in the melancholy expedition to the Spanish Main in 1740-41, the 6th, 15th, 16th, and 36th Regiments served; and the 6th, especially, suffered so terribly from fever at Jamaica in 1742 that when it returned home it had, from this and other causes, only eighteen men left of the eight hundred who sailed from England. The expedition, including the abortive attacks on Cuba and Carthagena, was throughout conducted in such a way as to be fruitless of result, and is noteworthy as a rare event in such expeditions, for the want of cordial co-operation between the naval and military commanders. In 1746 the Royal Scots, 15th, 28th, 30th, 39th, and 42nd were embarked under General Sinclair to destroy Port L’Orient, but beyond a feeble bombardment little was done, and the army re-embarked to make a similar abortive attempt at Quiberon Bay. Similarly, the 30th fought in the naval action of Finisterre as marines (in addition of course to those troops that had been definitely enlisted for sea service), and received the thanks of the Admiral for their general behaviour. At that time the proportion of marines embarked in vessels of war was one man per gun; a fifty-gun frigate carrying therefore fifty men.