Long, considering, as he says, that he was strong enough to attempt the ‘blow’ of which Beresford had spoken, resolved first to drive off the French dragoon regiment which threatened his flank, and then to fall upon the hussars and infantry. He sent orders to De Grey and the heavy dragoons to close in upon the rear and left flank of the French, from whom they were still separated by a ridge, but to hold off till the rest of the troops had disposed of the covering cavalry. He then advanced with the light squadrons, English and Portuguese, to get beyond the French dragoons--his line was formed with two Portuguese squadrons (7th regiment) on the extreme left, then the two and a half squadrons of the 13th British Light Dragoons[321], and to the right the three remaining Portuguese squadrons (1st regiment). [321] A squadron was absent with Colborne’s column and another troop on distant reconnaissance work, and the regiment was not much over 200 sabres. Seeing that Long was manœuvring to outflank him, Latour-Maubourg ordered the 26th Dragoons to charge before the movement was far advanced. The British 13th formed to their front, and started to meet them; the two lines met with a tremendous crash, neither giving way, and were mingled for a few moments in desperate hand to hand fighting[322], in which Colonel Chamorin, the French brigadier, was slain in a personal combat with a corporal named Logan of the 13th. Presently the French broke, and fled in disorder along and beside the Badajoz road. Then followed one of those wild and senseless pursuits which always provoked Wellington’s wrath, and induced him to say in bitterness that the ordinary British cavalry regiment was ‘good for nothing but galloping[323].’ General Long says in his account of the affair that he found it impossible to stop or rally the Light Dragoons, and therefore sent after them the two squadrons of the 7th Portuguese, to act as a support. But the Portuguese put on a great pace to come up with the 13th, got excited in pursuing stray knots of French dragoons, broke their order, and finally joined in the headlong chase as recklessly as their comrades. [322] Napier’s story that they charged _through_ each other, formed up front to rear, and then charged each other again is strongly denied by Beresford as ‘purely supposititious’ (_Strictures_, pp. 152-3), and not confirmed by Long or any other eye-witness. [323] See vol. i. p. 119. [Illustration: _Field Marshal Sir William Carr Beresford_]