Discovering Delaborde drawn up on the isolated hill of Roliça, where both his flanks could easily be turned, the British commander resolved to endeavour to envelop and surround him. He waited on the sixteenth till the rear of the army had come up, and marched at dawn on the seventeenth with his whole force--13,000 British and 2,000 Portuguese, drawn up in a crescent-shaped formation with the centre refused and the wings thrown far forward. On the right Colonel Trant, with three battalions of Portuguese infantry and fifty horse of the same nation, moved along the foot of the western range of heights, to turn the Roliça position by a wide circular movement. On the left General Ferguson, with his own brigade, that of Bowes, and six guns, struck over the hills to get round the eastern flank of the French. In the centre the remainder of the army--four brigades of British infantry, 400 cavalry, half English and half Portuguese, with the battalion of Cazadores and twelve guns, advanced on a broad front in two lines, forming a most magnificent spectacle: ‘they came on slowly but in beautiful order, dressing at intervals to correct the gaps caused by the inequalities of ground, and all converging on the hill of Roliça[204].’ Hill’s brigade formed the right, Fane’s the left, Nightingale’s the centre, while Catlin Crawfurd’s two battalions and the Cazadores acted as the reserve. [204] Foy, iv. 309. Delaborde had warned his men to be ready for a sudden rush to the rear the minute that the enveloping movement should grow dangerous. Waiting till the last possible moment, when Fane’s riflemen were already engaged with his tirailleurs, and Trant and Ferguson were showing on the flanks, he suddenly gave the order for retreat. His men hurried back, easily eluding the snare, and took post on the wooded heights above Columbeira a mile to the rear. Wellesley had to rearrange his troops for an attack on the second position, and half the morning had been wasted to no effect. He resolved, however, to repeat his original manœuvre. Trant and the Portuguese once more made a long sweep to the right: Ferguson’s column mounted the foot-hills of the Sierra de Baragueda and commenced a toilsome detour to the left[205]. In the centre two batteries formed up near a windmill on the northern slope of Roliça hill and began to bombard the French position, while Fane’s brigade to the left on the main road, and Hill’s and Nightingale’s to the right deployed for the attack. [205] I cannot find the authority for Napier’s statement that Fane joined Ferguson in the second move. He seems still to have acted in the centre.