Jack was sincerely attached to his generous and eccentric chief, and the general was gratified by the young officer's readiness at all times and hours to come to him and write from his dictation the long letters and dispatches which he sent home.

He saw, too, that he was thoroughly trustworthy, and could be relied upon to keep absolute silence as to the confidences which he made him.
In the midst of all these quarrels and disputes the siege was carried on in a languid manner.

A battery of fifty heavy guns, supplied by the ships and manned by seamen, was placed upon a rising ground flanked by two deep ravines, and on several of the adjacent hills batteries of light field guns had been raised.

Three weeks were consumed in these comparatively unimportant operations, and no real advance toward the capture of the place had been effected.

Something like a blockade, however, had been established, for the Catalan peasants guarded vigilantly every approach to the town.
The officers of the fleet were no less discontented than their brethren on shore at the feeble conduct of the siege, and had they been consulted they would have been in favor of a direct attack upon the city with scaling ladders, as if they had been about to board a hostile ship.
But Peterborough and his officers were well aware that such an attack against a city defended by a superior force would be simple madness, and even an attack by regular approaches, with the means and labor at their disposal, would have had no chance of success.