After the eighth there followed seven days of continuous rain, which turned the camp of Reille’s division into a marsh, and effectually prevented the construction of siege works in the low-lying ground opposite to the town. The only active operation that could be undertaken was an attempt to storm the fort of the Trinity, which the French believed to be in far worse condition than was actually the case. It was held by eighty Spaniards, under the Irish Lieutenant-Colonel Fitzgerald, and twenty-five of the _Excellent’s_ marines[57]. The six voltigeur and grenadier companies of the 2nd Italian light infantry delivered the assault with great dash and resolution. But as the strong frontal tower of the fort was high and unbreached, they could make no impression, their ladders proved useless, and they were repulsed with a loss of sixty men. Their leader, the _chef-de-bataillon_ Lange, and several other officers were left dead at the foot of the walls.
Seeing that nothing was to be won by mere escalade, Reille had to wait for his siege artillery, which began to arrive from Perpignan on November 16. He at once started two batteries on the Puig-Rom to breach the Fort of the Trinity, and when the ground had begun to grow dry in front of the town, opened trenches opposite its north-eastern angle. When a good _emplacement_ had been found a battery was established which played upon the citadel, and commanded so much of the harbour that Reille hoped that the British ships would be compelled to shift their anchorage further out to sea. The Spaniards and the _Excellent_ replied with such a heavy fire that in a few hours the battery was silenced, after its powder magazine had been exploded by a lucky shell [November 19].
Next day, however, the French repaired the damage and mounted more guns, whose fire proved so damaging that Captain West had to move further from the shore. The assailants had established a marked superiority over the fire of the besieged, and availed themselves of it by pushing out parallels nearer to the town, and building four more breaching batteries. With these additional resources they began to work serious damage in the unstable bastions of the citadel. They also knocked a hole in the Fort of the Trinity: but the breach was so far from the foot of the wall that it was still almost inaccessible, the heaps of rubbish which fell into the ditch did not even reach the lowest part of the gap.