And on the 23rd April following they began to erect the eastern battery upon the hill. It was surrounded by a ditch about fifteen feet wide and twelve deep, over which was a draw-bridge about four feet wide. The south-west angle measured eighty-three feet; the other angles ninety-six, eighty-three, fifty-eight, and twenty-nine feet. There was also a block-house erected, about fifteen feet square, the upper part of which was a guard house. The terrace round the inside of the ditch was four feet broad. The embrazures were eighteen feet wide and four feet high. The magazine was six feet square, and the glacis (which was next the sea) was fifty-three feet broad. This battery mounted six pieces of cannon, four thirty-two pounders, and two nine pounders; and was finished, as was also the north battery, on the 21st December, 1782, just time enough to fire (as it happened) for the general peace concluded the 20th January, 1783. On the 12th August, 1782, in honour of the Prince of Wales’s birthday, nine guns were fired from the south battery, four from the north, and four from the east battery; which was the first time of the cannon being exercised. The camp on East Heath also fired three volleys on the occasion.
The real cause, most probably, that hastened the finishing of these forts, was the information which Government had received of a descent intended to have been made on this coast.
In consequence of this intelligence, on the 23rd March, 1782, Captain Fisher, of the engineers, came to Lowestoft, and afterwards went to East Heath, near Mutford Bridge, and marked out the ground for an encampment.
On the 27th following, the Captain requested a meeting of the inhabitants of the town to know whether a sufficient number of men could be raised in order to work the guns at the batteries, provided that a party of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, then quartered in the town, should undertake to teach them their exercise. On the Captain offering this proposal, a subscription of upwards of £100 was immediately entered into by the principal inhabitants, with a design of carrying the proposal into execution, but not being sufficiently encouraged it came to nothing.
On the 29th March, Colonel Deibieg arrived at Lowestoft, and informed the inhabitants that Government had received undoubted information of an intended invasion shortly to be made at three different parts of the kingdom at the same time, namely at Torbay, Newcastle, and on the coast near Yarmouth; and therefore requested to be informed whether the town was able to furnish two hundred men to work the guns at the batteries. On this application a meeting was called of the inhabitants to take the same into consideration, when the answer was, that by reason of the great number of sailors belonging to the town being at that time employed in the navy, it was impossible to obtain the number of men required.
On June 23rd, Lord Townshend, Commander-in-chief of the camp at Warley common, and the coasts of Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, came to Lowestoft, and surveyed the works carrying on there, and also the ground intended for the encampment on East Heath. On the 24th his Lordship, accompanied by his aide-de-camps, went to Oulton, and surveyed the dyke there, in order to discover whether that part of the river was fordable by the enemy in case of descent.
July 22nd, the 20 regiment of Light Dragoons, commanded by General Philipson, encamped on East Heath, at the bottom of Fidlers’ hill, near Kirkley bridge. And on September 10th, they were reviewed on the Heath by Lord Townshend, the Earl of Orford, General Tryon, and General Philipson.
September 11, eight pieces of cannon passed through Lowestoft for Benacre, to be placed there, along the coast to Harwich as signal guns.
September 25, General Conway, Commander-in-chief of his Majesty’s forces, arrived at Lowestoft; and being attended by Lord Townshend, General Tryon, General Morrison, and their Aide-de-Camps, surveyed the batteries in Lowestoft, and afterwards reviewed the regiment of Dragoons from East Heath; the regiment of foot and Cambridgeshire militia from Hopton; and the West Norfork militia from Castor, on Fritton Heath.
On the 28th September Captain Heigington’s company of the 10th Regiment of Foot came from Hopton Common, and encamped near the Battery at the north end of the town, to be in readiness, in case of necessity, to assist the artillery at the fort, commanded by Captain Marlow.