The Frenchman observing our quarrel, instantly took to his heels, and being exceedingly alert, was out of sight before I could fire at him. On the 12th we were employed in the trenches, from whence we picked off the enemy's gunners. The riflemen also, taking advantage of a thick fog, did great execution; but in the night the weather was so cold, and the besieged shot so briskly, that little progress was made.. Two days afterwards, the enemy, having observed that the men in the trenches went off in a disorderly manner on the approach of the relief, made a sally, and overturned the gabions of the sap; they even penetrated to the parallel, and were upon the point of entering the batteries, when a few of the workmen getting together, checked them until a support arrived, and thus the guns were saved. This affair,

together with the death of the engineer on duty, and the heavy fire from the town, delayed the opening of the breaching batteries; but at half-past four in the evening, twenty-five heavy guns battered the rampart, and two pieces were directed against the convent of Francisco. The spectacle was sublime. The enemy replied by more than fifty pieces; the bellowing of eighty large guns shook the ground far and wide; the smoke rested in heavy columns upon the battlements of the place; the walls crashed to the blow of the bullet; and when night put an end to this turmoil, the quick clatter of musketry was heard like the pattering of hail after a peal of thunder; for the 40th regiment assaulted and carried the convent of Francisco, and established itself on the suburb on the left of the attack. On the 17th the firing on both sides was very heavy, and the wall of the place was beaten down in large cantles; but several of the besiegers' guns were dismounted, their batteries injured, and many of their men killed. General Borthwick, the Commandant of the artillery, was wounded, and the

sap was entirely ruined. Even the riflemen in the pits were at first overpowered with grape, yet towards evening they recovered the upper hand, and the French could fire only from the more distant embrasures. In the night the battery intended for the lesser breach was armed, and that on the lower Teson raised, so as to afford cover in the day time. On the 19th it was reported that both breaches were practicable, and a plan of attack was immediately formed.

All the troops reached their different posts without seeming to attract the attention of the enemy; but before the signal was given, and while Lord Wellington was still at the convent of Francisco, the attack on the right commenced, and was instantly taken up along the whole line. The space between the army and the ditch was then ravaged by a tempest of grape from the ramparts. The storming parties of the third division jumped out of the parallel when the first shout arose; but so rapid had been the movements on their right, that before they could reach the ditch, three regiments had already scoured the fausse-braye, and were pushing up the great breach, amid the bursting of shells, the whistling of grape and muskets, and the shrill cries of the French, who were driven fighting behind the retrenchments. There, however, they rallied, and, aided by the musketry from the houses, made hard battle for their post; none would go back on either side, and yet the British could not get forward; and men and officers, falling in heaps, choked up the passage, which was incessantly raked with grape from two guns flanking the top of the breach at the distance of a few yards. It was now our turn. had three hundred yards to clear; but, impatient of delay, we did not wait for the hay-bags, but swiftly ran to the crest of the glacis, jumped down the scarp, a depth of eleven feet, and rushed up the faussebraye, under a smashing discharge of grape and musketry. The bottom of the ditch was dark and intri

We

cate, and the forlorn hope took too much to their left; but the storming party went straight to the breach, which was so contracted, that a gun placed lengthwise across the top nearly blocked up the opening. Here the forlorn hope rejoined the stormers; but when twothirds of the ascent were gained, the leading men, crushed together by the narrowness of the place, staggered under the weight of the enemy's fire. Our Commander, Major Napier, was at this moment struck to the earth by a grape-shot, which shattered his arm, but he called on his men to trust to their bayonets; and all the officers simultaneously sprang to the front, when the charge was renewed with a furious shout, and the entrance was gained. The supporting regiments then came up in sections abreast, and the place was won. During the contest, which lasted only for a few minutes after the fausse-braye was passed, the fighting had continued at the great breach with unabated violence; but when the 43d, and the stormers of the light division, came pouring down on the right flank of the French, the latter yielded to the storm; at the same moment the explosion of three wall-magazines destroyed many persons, and the third division with a mighty effort broke through the retrenchments. The garrison fought for a short time in the streets, but finally fled to the castle, where an officer, who, though wounded, had been amongst the foremost at the lesser breach, received the Governor's sword. The allies now plunged into the streets from all quarters; after which, throwing off the restraints of discipline, frightful excesses were committed. The town was fired in three or four places; the soldiers menaced their officers, and shot each other; many were killed in the market-place; intoxication soon increased the disorder; and at last, the fury rising to an absolute madness, a fire was wilfully lighted in the middle of the great magazine, when the town, and all

in it, would have been blown to atoms, but for the energetic courage of some officers and a few soldiers, who still preserved their senses. Three hundred French had fallen; fifteen hundred were made prisoners; and beside the immense store of ammunition, above one hundred and fifty pieces of artillery were captured in the place. The whole loss of the allies was about twelve hundred soldiers, and ninety officers; and of these above six hundred and fifty men, and sixty officers, had been slain or hurt in the breaches. General Crauford and General Mackinnon were killed. With these died many gallant men; and amongst others, a Captain in the regiment to which I belonged. Of him it was felicitously said, that "three Generals and seventy other officers had fallen; but the soldiers fresh from the strife only talked of Hardyman." Unhappily, the slaughter did not end with the battle; for the next day, as the prisoners and their escort were marching out by the breach, an accidental explosion took place, and numbers of both were blown into the air. The personal sufferings of the soldiers were severe, as the service had been unusually dangerous. While in the front ditch near the glacis, a live shell exploded within a few paces of the spot on which I stood: we threw ourselves flat on the ground, but, though nearly suffocated by the dust it threw around, no material injury was inflicted either on myself or comrades. The station I was ordered to take on the following day was of a melancholy cast. It was in the ditch, among the unburied dead. Nothing struck me more forcibly than the conduct of a soldier's widow. Suspecting that her husband had fallen, she traversed this vale of death to seek him. Never shall I forget the anguish of her soul when she discovered the muchloved remains. The brave man had fallen covered with wounds. His countenance was sadly disfigured, and suffused with blood. She fell upon his face and kissed

his faded lips. She then gazed at the lifeless form, repeated her embraces, and then gave way to the wild and ungovernable grief which struggled for expression. Sin! what hast thou done? Nor can I forbear observing, that a noble disregard for suffering, and fortitude of no common kind, were frequently shown both by officers and men, though severely hurt and disabled. None retired to the rear, until compelled by stern necessity. This resolute disposition to surmount, and if possible forget, all surmountable difficulties, reminds me of a French royalist officer, in the late revolutionary war. Being engaged in a desperate action, he had the misfortune to have both his legs carried away by a cannon ball. While lying on the ground, a wounded soldier indulged in loud and clamorous complaints: "Peace, friend," said the officer: our God died upon the cross; our King perished on the scaffold; and I have lost my limbs. Revere the Almighty, and be patient."

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The siege of Ciudad Rodrigo lasted twelve days. When the Commander-in-chief terminated his order for the assault, with this sentence, "Ciudad Rodrigo must be stormed this evening," he knew well that it would be nobly understood. The difficulties we had to encounter were great. The principal breach was cut off from the town by a perpendicular descent of sixteen feet; and the bottom was planted with sharp spikes, and strewed with live shells. The houses behind were all loop-holed and sprinkled with musketeers.

The French had left their temporary bridges, but behind were parapets so powerfully defended, that it was said the third division could never have carried them, had not the light division taken the enemy in flank. To recompense an exploit so boldly undertaken and so nobly finished, Lord Wellington was created Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo, by the Spaniards, Earl of Wellington, by the English, and Marquis of Torres Vedras, by the Portuguese.