Arrived before the town, Auchmuty discovered that the defences of Monte Video were not “weak,” as Popham had described them in his memorandum, but, to use Auchmuty’s own word, “respectable,” mounting 160 guns. Moreover the Spaniards, through possession of a fortified island, kept command of the sea, and were able to cannonade the British advance from their gunboats. Nevertheless, Auchmuty was fully decided that he would take Monte Video somehow. While he was making up his mind how to do it the enemy appeared on his rear, but was repulsed after a sharp skirmish, in which the Seventeenth lost a few men. [Sidenote: 22nd Jan.] After a few days’ construction of batteries and other preparations, Auchmuty saw that if Monte Video was to be taken it must be stormed, and accordingly made his dispositions for an assault at daybreak on the 3rd February. Naturally he chose infantry regiments for infantry work, and left the Seventeenth, together with the rest of the cavalry, the 47th Foot, one company of the 71st, and 700 marines to protect the rear and cover the attack, under the command of General Lumley. [Sidenote: 3rd Feb.] The storming force did its work magnificently, and in a few hours Monte Video was in Auchmuty’s hands, though at the cost of 27 officers and 370 men killed and wounded. Horses being cheap, some of the Seventeenth were now mounted, doubtless a very welcome change from the drudgery of the infantry work during the siege of Monte Video; though even when employed on foot the regiment earned the personal thanks of the General. [Sidenote: 1807.] The Seventeenth had shown that it could beat the infantry at its own work in Jamaica eleven years before. But the native South American horses, as Auchmuty himself says, were not strong enough to carry the equipment of the British dragoons. The native irregular horsemen, armed with muskets and swords, pursued a method of warfare of the most harassing kind. They would ride up in twos or threes, dismount, fire over their horses’ backs, mount again, and gallop off before the British had a chance of catching them. And these men were not soldiers; they were the ordinary members of the population, not friendly as Popham had hoped, but inveterately hostile to the European invaders. In fact the British on the Plata found exactly the same elements opposed to them in New Spain as Napoleon was to find, a few months later, in the old Spain which is known to us as the Peninsula. [Sidenote: March.] Owing to the difficulty of obtaining forage, the mounted men of the Seventeenth, some 220 in number, were sent up the country forty or fifty miles from Monte Video to Lanelones and St. Joseph, while the remainder of the regiment was quartered in and about Monte Video.