Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/305

 pieces of evidence on the question on which Gibbon and Mr, Cobden express themselves so dogmatically. When he knew that his offer had been accepted, he says:—"I kept on eating, principally bread, but I carefully controlled my thirst, knowing how insatiable it becomes under nervous excitement. On the concerted signal for the assault—three guns from the batteries—my heart beat double quick, and I applied my mouth to the calabash of Jack Jones, from which I swallowed a gulp of 'aguardiente.' On arriving at the top of the breach, I saw a musket levelled not far from my head, and a Frenchman in the act of pulling the trigger. I bobbed my head in time, but was wounded and stunned by the fire. I found myself at the bottom of the breach. I cannot tell how long I was there, but on putting my hand to the back of my head, where I felt that I had been wounded, I found that the skull was not fractured." He again scrambled up the breach, and gained the rampart of the bastion. Here he saw one of his men, Pat Lowe, in the act of bayoneting a French officer who resisted being plundered, and he saved the Frenchman by knocking down the Irishman. His prisoner guided him to a tower where the French Governor and some officers had shut