"I was speaking to Colonel Cox this afternoon. He is a brave man, and with trustworthy troops would, I am sure, hold the town until the last; but, unsupported as he is, he is in the hands of these rascally Portuguese officers. I told him that, if he ordered me to do so, I would undertake with my men to arrest the whole of them; but he said that that would bring on a mutiny of all their troops; and this, bad as the situation already was, would only make matters much worse. I then suggested that, as the French are driving their trenches towards those two old redoubts outside the wall, I would, if he liked, place our force in them; and would undertake to hold them, pointing out that if they fell into the hands of the enemy they would soon mount their cannon there, and bring down the whole wall facing in that direction. "He quite agreed with that view of the case, but said that it would be a very exposed position; still, as our fellows were certainly the only trustworthy troops he had, he should be very glad if I would undertake the defence at once, as the French were pushing their approaches very fast towards them. I said that I was sure we could hold them for some little time; and that, indeed, it seemed to me that the French intended to bombard the town rather than to breach the walls, knowing the composition of the garrison and, perhaps, having intelligence that their courage would be so shaken, by a heavy fire, that the place would surrender in a much shorter time than it would take to breach the walls. Accordingly, he has given me leave to march our men up there, at daybreak tomorrow; taking with us ten days' provisions. "I said that if he had trouble with the other Portuguese regiments I would, on his hoisting a red flag on the church steeple, march in at once to seize and shoot the leaders of the mutiny, if he wished it. Of course, one of my reasons for wanting to take charge of the redoubts was that we should have more chance of withdrawing, from them, than we should of getting out of the town, itself, in the confusion and panic of an approaching surrender." Bull and Ryan both agreed with Terence and, at daybreak the next morning, the half battalion marched out, relieved the Portuguese troops holding the two redoubts, and established themselves there. They had brought with them a number of intrenching tools, and were accompanied by an engineer officer. So, as soon as they reached the redoubts, several parties of men were set to work, to begin to sink pits for driving galleries in the direction of the approaches that the French were pushing forward; while others assisted a party of artillerymen to work the guns. Some of the best shots in the corps took their places on the rampart, and were directed to maintain a steady fire on the French working parties.