After Lord Wellington had found it useless to attempt to face the breach with the _chevaux de frise_, he altered his plans of attack. More success had fortunately been achieved in the other breaches, so he withdrew the men from our fatal breach to reinforce the others, but not till at least two thousand had been killed or wounded in this single assault. He had ordered the castle to be attacked, and a quantity of troops had been supplied for the purpose with long ladders, which had been raised against the walls and filled with men: but the enemy showered down a mass of heavy substances, such as trees and large stones, and amongst all a number of deadly bursting shells, and thus broke the ladders and tumbled the men down from top to bottom, crushing still more underneath.
Yet more men were found ready to push on to the sanguinary scene. More ladders had indeed to be procured, which caused another great delay, but as soon as they arrived they were quickly hoisted, and the precaution was taken this time to fix them farther apart, so that if more beams were waiting to be rolled over, they might not take such a deadly sweep.
The second attempt was more successful, for the ramparts were gained and the French driven back: and a single piece of ground being thus gained, a footing was soon established for many more, who succeeded in turning round some guns and firing them along the ramparts, soon sweeping the enemy off them.
Fresh reinforcements on both sides shortly arrived at this for us successful spot, but the garrison was soon forced back into the town. The ramparts were then scoured, the breaches cleared, and the _chevaux de frise_ pulled down, and the main body of the English entered the town. Some opposition had to be overcome in the streets, but that was soon cleared away, and the French escaped to Fort San Cristoval.
Our troops found the city illuminated to welcome them, but nevertheless then began all the horrors that generally attended a capture by assault--plunder, waste, destruction of property, drunkenness, and debauchery. I was myself exempt from all this, owing to my wounds, which kept me in camp at the time the town was taken; but though I was at least a mile off, I could distinctly hear the clamour of the rabble, as the guns and musketry had ceased; and next morning I hobbled as well as I could into the town with the help of the handle of a sergeant's pike chopped up so as to form a stick, and there sure enough I found a pretty state of affairs. Pipes of wine had been rolled into the streets and tapped by driving the heads in, for any one to drink of them who liked, and when the officers tried to keep order by throwing all of these over that they could, the men that were in a state of drunkenness lay down to drink out of the gutters, which were thus running with all sorts of liquors; doors were blown open all through the city, both upstairs and down, by placing muskets at the keyhole and so removing the locks. I myself saw that morning a naked priest launched into the street and flogged down it by some of our men who had a grudge against him for the treatment they had met at a convent, when staying in the town before. I happened to meet one of my company, and asked him how he was getting on, to which he replied that he was wounded in the arm, but that he had got hold of something that compensated for that a little, showing me a bag of about a hundred dollars that he had succeeded in obtaining, and saying that I should not want whilst he had got it.