The passage up the river was delayed by contrary winds, but at last the hundred miles were traversed, and the troops landed at Ensenada, thirty miles below Buenos Ayres. The moment the army was disembarked it was surrounded by a cloud of Spanish light cavalry hovering about just out of musket range. Here was the opportunity for using the Seventeenth; but it was not employed. Two of the four mounted troops, each of forty men, were ordered to give up their horses to the commissariat. [Sidenote: 28th June to 5th July.] But when the pack-saddles were put on them the horses broke loose, and were from that moment useless. Thirty more mounted men were detailed to look after the landing of provisions, of whom ten were used as orderlies to carry despatches. [Sidenote: 1807.] Twelve more were attached to one of the infantry brigades; and the remainder, forty-eight all told, accompanied General Whitelocke, principally, no doubt, as his escort. The natural consequence was that the army could hardly advance at all. One staff officer was taken prisoner by the enemy’s light cavalry while carrying orders between two brigades, and another was stabbed within three hundred yards of the flank of the British line, all for want of a little cavalry which, with unspeakable folly, had been dismounted just when it was most sorely needed to encounter the enemy’s horse. On the 29th June the advance began, across a very difficult country, much intersected by ditches and swamps, the dismounted men of the Seventeenth forming the rear-guard. The army was like to have been starved on this short march, but eventually it reached Buenos Ayres, after brushing aside some slight opposition from the Spaniards on the 4th July. Part of the Seventeenth and 40th Foot were left behind at the village of Reduction on the way, to protect the artillery. Sixteen of them, mounted men, together with thirty dismounted men of the 9th, were engaged in repelling an attack on the rear of the British advance. [Sidenote: 3rd July.]