This Recruit to me however was the more generous for being seasonable.  Benefits are always doubled in their being easily conferr’d and well tim’d; and with such an Allowance as I constantly had by the order of King Philip, as Prisoner of War, viz. eighteen Ounces of Mutton per diem for my self, and nine for my Man, with Bread and Wine in proportion, and especially in such a Situation; all this I say was sufficient to invite a Man to be easy, and almost forget his want of Liberty, and much more so to me if it be consider’d, that, that want of Liberty consisted only in being debarr’d from leaving the pleasantest City in all Spain.

Here I met with the French Engineer, who made the Mine under the Rock of the Castle at Alicant.  That fatal Mine, which blew up General Richards, Colonel Syburg, Colonel Thornicroft, and at least twenty more Officers.  And yet by the Account, that Engineer gave me, their Fate was their own choosing:  The General, who commanded at that Siege being more industrious to save them, than they were to be say’d:  He endeavour’d it many ways:  He sent them word of the Mine, and their readiness to spring it; he over and over sent them Offers of Leave to come, and take a view of it, and inspect it:  Notwithstanding all which, tho’ Colonel Thornicroft, and Captain Page, a French Engineer, in the Service of King Charles, pursued the Invitation, and were permitted to view it, yet would they not believe; but reported on their Return, that it was a sham Mine, a feint only to intimidate ’em to a Surrender, all the Bags being fill’d with Sand instead of Gun-powder.

The very Day on which the Besiegers design’d to spring the Mine, they gave Notice of it; and the People of the Neighbourhood ran up in Crowds to an opposite Hill in order to see it:  Nevertheless, altho’ those in the Castle saw all this, they still remain’d so infatuated, as to imagine it all done only to affright ’em.  At length the fatal Mine was sprung, and all who were upon that Battery lost their Lives; and among them those I first mentioned.  The very Recital hereof made me think within my self, who can resist his Fate?

That Engineer added further, that it was with an incredible Difficulty, that he prepar’d that Mine; that there were in the Concavity thirteen hundred Barrels of Powder; notwithstanding which, it made no great Noise without, whatever it might do inwardly; that only taking away what might be not improperly term’d an Excrescence in the Rock, the Heave on the Blast had render’d the Castle rather stronger on that Side than it was before, a Crevice or Crack which had often occasioned Apprehensions being thereby wholly clos’d and firm.