anchor off the New Mole, one hundred
and fourteen pieces of heavy metal, chiefly
twenty-six pounders and thirteen- inch
mortars, opened on the garrison. The
frightened inhabitants instantly flocked in
the most pitiable confusion to the south
end of the Rock, leaving all their property
to the mercy of the soldiers. During
the cannonade several houses were burnt,
and on the third day's bombardment the
soldiers began to plunder the wine-shops,
and gave way to great excesses in their
rage at the liquor dealers, who had greatly
raised their prices, and had concealed their
stores. Some of the men conveyed spirits
to their own haunts, and there barricading
themselves, regardless of punishment, drank
themselves to death. In one instance a
party of soldiers roasted a pig with a fire
made of cinnamon. The stores in the
Spanish church having been set on fire,
the flour-casks were removed to the King's
Bastion, and piled as temporary shelter
before the doors of the southern
casemates, where many people had been killed
or wounded in bed. The men,
however, when the spoils of the town grew
scarcer, made prizes of all barrels pierced
by the enemy's shot, and scooped out the
flour for pancakes, which they were very
expert at making. Our batteries having
become quite ruinous by their incessant
firing, and the town nearly demolished,
men were sent up on the terraces with
sand-bags to repair them, and also to make
higher, stronger, and more numerous
protecting traverses.

The fleet had begun to move, the
admiral fearing to lose the easterly wind; the
colliers were therefore sunk, to be unloaded
at leisure. Much merchandise brought for
the garrison was taken back, the merchants
refusing to receive it on account of the
bombardment. On the night of the 20th the
town was set on fire in four different places;
but as the public stores remained safe, no
attempts were made to extinguish the flames.
On the 21st, the enemy fired forty-two
rounds in two minutes, and the garrison
flag had to be nailed to the stump of its
shattered staff. On the 24th a shell fell at
the door of a casemate under the south flank
of the King's Bastion, and wounded four
men. The garrison orders now were that
any soldier found drunk or asleep on his
post, or caught marauding, should be
immediately executed, and on the 30th a
Hanoverian was shot by a sentry for stealing,
and another soldier thief hung on the
Grand Parade at the door of the store he
had plundered. About this time four
frigates and a sloop brought in twenty
victualling vessels with provisions purchased
by the governor at Minorca.

On the 9th of May, Lieutenant Lowe,
of the Twelfth Regiment, while
superintending the working parties on the slope
of the hill under the castle, lost his leg by
a shot. He saw the shot coming, but was
fascinated to the spot till it struck him.
It often happened during the siege that a
soldier saw a shell coming, and even cried
for help, yet could not move till the shell
struck the ground. Then he instantaneously
recovered, ran, and often escaped before it
burst. The houses in the town being now
mere wrecks, the governor generally spent
the day with his suite in a large ten pitched
on rising ground south of the Red Sands;
but the lieutenant-governor resided in the
bomb-proof in the King's Bastion, to be near
the centre of danger. The enemy fired about
one thousand rounds in the twenty-four
hours. On the 25th, the gun and mortar
boats at night were unusually active. A
shell fell on a house in Hardytown, and
killed a respectable Jew, a female relation of
his, and a clerk. Another fell into a house
in which were fifteen persons, and only
a child perished. A soldier of the Seventy-second
was killed in bed by a shot, and so
was a Jew butcher. In all, seven were
killed, and twelve or thirteen were wounded.
The soldiers were very discontented at
having to bear all this silently—the orders
being that the gunboats were not to be
fired upon till they were within grapeshot
distance—and the governor at last gave
them leave to return the next fire.

On the morning of the 3rd of June, a
corporal going with the relief to Landport,
had the muzzle of his fire-lock closed and
the barrel twisted like a French horn by a
shell, which, however, did the man no
personal injury. The 4th of June being the
king's birthday, the governor commemorated
the event by saluting the enemy with
twenty-three cannon and forty-three
mortars. A few days after the enemy celebrated
Corpus Christi day with similar volleys.
The visits of the gunboats after midnight
had gradually become intensely vexatious,
as the boats were too small to be easily hit.
Our soldiers were instantly on these
occasions ordered under cover, while the
inhabitants fled nearly naked to any remote
part of the walls. No one could ever be
sure of a night's repose. Though the
enemy's bombardment now seldom
exceeded four hundred and fifty rounds in