[[M]] This grand Affair having taken up near a Fortnight in raising, and many more Men employed to work, than was necessary (for there were five hundred Seamen, between two and three hundred Blacks, besides as many Pioneers as could be spared out of the Army) much Execution may be expected therefrom: But alas! the Engineers would by no Means outdo themselves; the Battery was constructed in a Wood! and no more Ground was cleared, than a Space necessary for so stupendous a Building (lest the Enemy should see the Army!). For so great Caution was used, that before the Wood in the Front of the Battery was cut down, it was a Doubt, whether any Guns could be brought to bear on the Castle; and as it was, no Guns could be brought to play on the Enemy's Shipping, although it was expected they would instantly fire on the Battery, and be capable of doing it the greatest Damage; (which they did) and had not an Epaulment been thrown up at the East End, every Shot from the Ships must have raked the Battery, and destroyed Numbers of Men. The Army allowed the Tars behaved gallantly; for it must be remarked, they had Seamen to fight the Guns in the Battery, as well as help to build it. Whether the Engineers proposed to batter the angular Point of the Bastion in Breach is Matter of Doubt, at the first laying out of their Battery; (but infinite Reasons may be assigned for the Absurdity, besides that great one, of having the Fire of two Flanks to destroy, instead of one) however it is generally believed, it was Hap-hazard; for the most impartial Judges in the Navy and Army agree, if the Enemy had cut down eighty or an hundred Paces of the Woods further round the Castle, the Undertaking would have been so difficult, as to have shocked the Science of all the Engineers, if not quite disheartened them, from so daring an Enterprise.
[[N]] The Position the Enemy had lain their Ships in, was beyond all Doubt the most advantageous, could be formed by Man; both for opposing any Attempt, that might be made by Shipping on the Entrance into the Harbour; or annoy any Battery, that could be raised ashore; and as they found no Battery against them, they failed not to play as briskly (as Spaniards will do when there is no body to hurt them) and did ten times more Damage than the Castle.
[[O]] These Ships were ordered to cannonade purely to oblige the General, who, because the Enemy's Ships fired at his Battery, desired the Admiral would send Ships to cannonade the Castle, though there was a Battery of twenty Guns to fire against five or six (for that was all the Castle could bring to bear on the Battery) so they had their Masts and Yards shot to pieces, and Numbers of Men killed and wounded, without doing any other Damage than beating down the Rubbish; (which the Battery would have done in half the Time, as being twice as near) for they could not come to hurt the Enemy's Ships, nor did it divert their Ships from firing at the Battery.
[[P]] So soon as the Enemy saw the Boats coming to Land, and these Ships come to an Anchor close to the Battery, they deserted it, and spiked up the Guns; but Captain Watson, and Captain Coates marched into it, and ripped up the Platforms, burned them and the Carriages, and effectually demolished the Battery: The Enemy fired at them from their Shipping, but with-out much Damage.
[[Q]] It may be remarked as something extraordinary, that although the Army thought the Breach just practicable, they should entirely cease firing, the Night before they intended the Attack; as it is a sort of an established Rule in all regular Sieges, to keep firing in the Night, to prevent the Enemy's removing the Rubbish, that is beat down in the Day, which the Enemy would certainly have done, if they had been sufficiently strong; for they began that Night a Counter-Battery of Fascines on the Ramparts, in order to have disputed it longer, which if they had had Time to have finished, and Numbers to have carried on both Works together, (viz.) moving the Rubbish from the Foot of the Breach, and compleating these Counter-Batteries, they would have rendered the Attack as difficult as from the Beginning.