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means of conveyance, he informed his own government, but he was doing all in his power to persuade them of the necessity of putting themselves in motion. He thus deceived himself and his government, instead of making efforts to supply the wants of the English army, or assisting them with his own means of transport. These he possessed in sufficient quantity; and it was discovered, when too late, that food in abundance might have been procured, had proper means been used for obtaining it. In the morning of the 25th, Cuesta dispatched intelligence that he was in pursuit of the French; in the evening he discovered that he was in some danger of being attacked by them, and on the following day his outposts were attacked in Torrijos, and driven in. General Zayas advanced with the van-guard to meet the French; he was attacked by Latour Maubourg, and the French advanced-guard, and suffered considerable loss; but Zayas was a good officer, and maintained his ground against superior numbers, while he sent to require support. Albuquerque had requested that his division might be the first sent to support the van-guard, either in case of its attacking the enemy or being attacked. While Cuesta made arrangements for the retreat of the whole army beyond the Alberche, he advanced time enough to save Zayas from a complete rout, and the army from the utter defeat which would have resulted from it.The van-guard was flying at the moment when he arrived; he charged the enemy, checked them, and gave the van time to form again, and fall back in good order. But for this timely success the whole army would have been dispersed, for all the artillery and baggage were in the streets of St. Olalla; carts of bread were there also, blocking up the way; the commissaries had taken flight, and the men, catching that panic which want of order in an army never fails to occasion on the first approach of danger, had begun to throw away their arms, that they might neither be encumbered with them in running away, nor supposed to be soldiers if they were overtaken. Albuquerque would have pursued his success had he not been compelled to retreat by repeated orders from the Commander-in-Chief, at the moment when he was about to attack a dis. heartened enemy, with troops confident in their own courage and in the skill of their leaders, and heated by the advantage which they had gained. He had, however, done much in saving the army, for never were movements conducted in a more wretched and disorderly manner. Saved from that total dispersion which must have ensued had not Albuquerque checked the French in their career,

the Spanish army retreated twenty miles from St. Olalla to the Alberche unmolested, and crossed the river, thus again forming a junction with the British. Cuesta thought it very unlikely that the enemy would venture to attack them here: there was a report that they had detached 15,000 men towards Madrid, and this strengthened his opinion. In fact, had Venegas performed his part of the concerted operations, either this must have been done by the French, or Madrid would have fallen into the hands of the patriots. But though this General was under Cuesta's orders, and had been instructed how to act in pursuance of the plan arranged with Sir Arthur Wellesley, counter orders were sent him by the Supreme Junta; and he, obeying these orders, disconcerted the whole arrangement, by employing himself in a useless cannonade of Toledo; thus leaving Madrid to the enemy, and permitting the French to bring their whole force against the Allies. Sir Arthur, as soon as the Spaniards fell back to the Alberche, expected a general action, and immediately prepared for it, recalling General Sherbrooke from Casalegas to his station in the line. The position which he chose extended rather more than two miles.

The British army was on the left; here the ground was open, and commanded by a height, upon which a division of infantry was stationed, under Major-General Hill. Still further upon the left was a range of mountains, separated from the height by a valley about three hundred fathoms wide, and here a ravine, running from north to south, covered the left and centre of the position, and terminated at the beginning of the olive grounds on the right. The valley was not occupied, because it was commanded by the height, and because the mountains were thought too distant to be of any importance in the expected battle. The right, consisting of Spaniards, extended immediately in front of Talavera, down to the Tagus; this part of the ground was covered by olive trees, and much intersected by banks and ditches. The high road, leading from the town to the bridge of Alberche, was defended by a heavy battery in front of the chapel of Nuestra Sonora del Prado, which was occupied by Spanish infantry. All the avenues to the town were defended in like manner; the town itself was occupied, and the remainder of the Spanish foot formed in two lines behind the banks on the road which led to the position of the British. In the centre between the allied armies was a commanding spot, on which the British had begun to construct a redoubt. Brigadier-General Alexander Campbell was posted here with a division of infantry, and General

Cotton's brigade of dragoons, with some Spanish cavalry in the open ground in the rear. When General Sherbrooke was recalled from Casalegas, General Mackenzie was left with a division of infantry and a brigade of horse as an advanced-post near Casa de Salinas, in a wood on the right of the Alberche, which covered the left of the British army. About two in the afternoon of the 27th the enemy appeared in strength on the left bank; Victor forded the Alberche, and before General Mackenzie's division could be withdrawn, it was attacked by very superior forces, under Generals La Pisse and Chaudron Rousseau. The British suffered considerably; but they withdrew in perfect order, and took their place in the line. Meantime the other divisions of the French crossed the Alberche, and advanced within cannon-shot of the Allied ariny They cannonaded the left of the British position, and attacked the Spanish infantry with their horse, hoping to break through and win the town; but they were bravely withstood and finally repulsed." The action ceased a little before nine at night. Victor had marked the height on which General Hill was posted; this he considered to be the key of the position, and thought that if he could beat the English from thence, it would be impossible for them to maintain the field afterwards. This might best be done during the night: he, therefore, ordered Ruffin to attack the hill with three regiments, Vilatte to support him, and La Pisse to make a feint upon the centre of the Allied armies, which might serve as a diversion. The attack was made soon after night had closed; for a moment it was successful, and the enemy got possession of the height: they were unable to maintain it. General Hill instantly attacked them with the bayonet, and recovered the post. At midnight the attempt was repeated, and failed again: according to the French accounts, one of the regiments destined for this service lost its way, owing to the darkness, and another was impeded by the ravine. Both sides suffered considerably at this well-contested point. The armies lay upon the field, the cavalry with their horses' bridles round their arms; but there was little rest during the night; both sides were on the alert and alarm, and in different parts of the field the vi dettes of each army were sometimes fired on by their own countrymen, being mistaken for enemies. Whole battalions of the enemy got into the English line, some crying that they were Spaniards, some that they were German deserters: the trick was soon discovered, and, in the reception which they met with, it is not unlikely that many a poor German, who really intended to desert, lost his

life. These night-engagements were carried on with the most determined fury; the men, after they had discharged their muskets, frequently closed, and beat out each other's brains with the buttend. The French had ascertained in the course of the evening, that any attack upon the town, posted as the Spaniards were, was hopeless; that the centre also was very strong, both from the rug. ged ground and the olive yards which covered it, and the works which had been thrown up there. The left was the most practicable point of attack, and the difficulty of carrying that they had severely experienced. Here, however, they made a third attempt at day-break, with three regiments, under General Ruffin, advancing in close columns. The enemy proceeded triumphantly, as they supposed, nearly to the summit; there they were again charged, and again beaten back; but they fell back in good order. Sir Arthur, for the further security of this post, now sent two brigades of horse into the valley on the left. Albuquerque had at this time been ordered by the Spanish Commander to go with his cavalry to a place near the town, where it was not only impossible for them to act, but there was not even room for them, the ground being thickly wooded. That able General ventured on this occasion to act from his own judgment: observing that the English cavalry were charged by very superior numbers, he hastened to support them, and his opportune arrival enabled them to occupy the position. Cuesta perceived the advantage of this movement, and suffered the Duke to choose his own ground, who accordingly took the post of danger with the English horse. To annoy this body, the French sent their riflemen to the heights on the left of the valley; thus occupying the ground which Sir Arthur had supposed beyond the bounds to which the action would extend. It proved of no advantage to them, for Cuesta, marking the movement, dispatched Camp-Marshal Don Luis Bassecourt against them with the fifth division of Spanish infantry, and dislodged them with great loss. About eleven, the enemy having been baffled in all their attempts, intermitted the attack, rested their troops, and, it is said, cooked their dinners upon the field. Wine and a little bread were served out to the British troops. A brook which flows into the Tagus separated the French and English in one part of the field, and during this pause, men of both armies went there to drink, as if a truce had been established. About noon Victor ordered a general attack along the whole of the line. His own three divisions were to attack the hill once more; Sebastiani was to form

his first division in two lines, on the left of La Pisse; Leval, with a brigade just then arriving from Aranjuez, to be stationed to the left of the first division, a little in the rear; still further to the left, Milhaud, with his division of dragoons, was to observe Talavera; Latour Maubourgh's division of infantry, and Merlin's division of light-horse formed in the rear of Victor, to support his corps, and advance into the open ground now occupied by him, as soon as he should have won the hill. The reserve was placed in a third line, behind Sebastiani's corps. From the moment this general attack commenced, the firing of musketry was heard on all sides, like the roll of a drum, with scarcely a moment's interruption during the remainder of the day, and the deeper sound of a heavy cannonade rising above it like thunder. The operations of the French were deranged by a blunder of Leval's division, which they attribute to the ruggedness of the ground, and the impossibility of preserving the line among the olive trees and vines. Instead of forming in echellon in the rear, it advanced to the front, and before it had finished deploying it was attacked. Leval, say the French, formed a square, and in his turn attacked the enemy with such success, that a whole English regiment surrendered and grounded its arms, when the Colonel of the regiment to which it had surrendered was unhappily killed: his men made a retrograde movement, and the English found themselves at liberty, with the loss of only 100 prisoners. The truth contained in this story is, that Leval's division was beaten from its station; Sebastiani sent a brigade to its support, and it fell back to the ground which it was designed to occupy. This occasioned some delay. When the line was formed, Sebastiani's corps waited till Victor's had begun the attack. La Pisse first crossed the ravine, supported by Latour Maubourgh's cavalry, and by two batteries, each of eight pieces of cannon. Vilatte threatened the hills and covered the cavalry, and Ruffin, skirting the great chain of mountains, endeavoured to turn the flank of the British army. The attack upon the hill was exceedingly formidable, but, like all the former, it failed. La Pisse was mortally wounded, his men were driven back, and Victor himself rallied them, and brought them once more to the contested point; their retrograde movement had exposed Sebastiani's right, and there also the French suffered considerably. While Victor led his troops once more to the foot of that hill which had so often been fatal to the assailants, Vilatte with the columns in the valley advanced to his support. General An