In this manner a fascine battery covered by a trench in front, on which the provincials had been working like beavers for two days and nights, was raised within two hundred and fifty yards of the West Gate, against which it began sending its shot on the 18th. This was by much the most dangerous effort that the besiegers had yet made, and the enemy at once trained every gun upon it that would bear, in the hope of either demolishing or silencing the work. It was so near that the men in the trenches, and those on the walls, kept up a continual fire of musketry at each other, interspersed with sallies of wit, whenever there was a lull in the firing. The French gunners, who were kept well supplied with wine, would drink to the besiegers, and invite them over to breakfast or to take a glass of wine. [Illustration: THE LIGHTHOUSE, WITH DÉBRIS OF OLD WORKS.] Cannon discovered. In two days the fire of our guns had beaten down the drawbridges, part of the West Gate, and some of the adjoining wall. Pepperell complains at this time of his want of good gunners, also of a sufficient supply of powder to make good the daily consumption, of which he had no previous conception, but is cheered by finding thirty cannon sunk at low-water mark on the opposite side of the harbor, which he designed mounting at the lighthouse forthwith, for attacking the Island Battery. Gorham’s regiment was posted there with this object. Thus again were the enemy furnishing means for their own destruction. Foreseeing that this fortification would shut the port to ships coming to his relief, Duchambon sent a hundred men across the harbor to drive off the provincials. A sharp fight ensued, in which the enemy were defeated. Titcomb’s Battery at Work. By this time another fascine battery situated by the shore, at a point nine hundred yards from the walls, began raking the Circular Battery of the enemy, in conjunction with the direct fire from our Advanced Battery. It was called Titcomb’s, from the officer in charge, Major Moses Titcomb of Hale’s regiment. These two fortifications were now knocking to pieces the northwest corner of the enemy’s ponderous works, known as the Dauphin Bastion. We were now playing on Louisburg from three batteries on the shore of the harbor, three in the rear of these, and had another in process of construction at the lighthouse, all of which, except the last, had been completed under fire within twenty days, without recourse to any scientific rules whatever. Capture of the Vigilant.