ived irregular
supplies.[5]

But in spite of all it was often in sore and pressing need. The soldiers
required to be well fed to be fit for duty, and yet not infrequently
they were half starved. Six thousand capacious mouths made havoc of
provisions, and a brig-load was quickly consumed. As if this was not
enough, the hucksters of the town, who had got hold of the necessaries
of life, secreted them to create an appearance of greater scarcity,
that they might extort still larger prices from the famine-stricken
inhabitants. Drinkwater, in his "History of the Siege," gives a list of
prices actually paid.

  "The hind-quarter of an Algerian sheep, with the head and tail, was
  sold for seven pounds and ten shillings; a large sow for upwards
  of twenty-nine pounds; a goat, with a young kid, the latter about
  twelve months old, for near twelve pounds. An English milch cow was
  sold for fifty guineas, reserving to the seller a pint of milk each
  day whilst she gave milk; and another cow was purchased by a Jew for
  sixty guineas, but the beast was in such a feeble condition that she
  dropped down dead before she had been removed many hundred yards."

But it was not only meat that was wanted: bread was so scarce that even
biscuit-crumbs sold for a shilling a pound! The economy of flour was
carried to the most minute details. It was an old custom that the
soldiers who were to mount guard should powder their hair, like the
servants in the royal household; but even this had to be denied them.
The Governor would not waste a thimbleful of the precious article, which
he had rather see going into the stomachs of his brave soldiers than
plastered on their hair.

A brief entry in a soldier's diary, tells how the pinch came closer and
closer: "Another bakery shut up to-day. No more flour. Even salt meat
scarce, and no vegetables."

Shortly after this an examination of supplies revealed the fact that
no fresh meat remained, with the exception of an old cow, which was
reserved for the sick. A goose was sold for two pounds, and 