Next morning at dawn (about 6 o’clock) the cannonade recommenced, and the French skirmishers once more pushed up towards the walls. Da Costa’s light companies were used against them, as well as those of the three British battalions. But the attack was not pressed home, and after a few hours Soult desisted: the guns were drawn off, the infantry retired. The Marshal wrote to King Joseph that it was no use pressing on: he had thrown 1,500 shot into the place without effect: by persisting ‘_nous y perdrions du monde sans résultat_[159].’ Wellington had to be attacked, but the way to reach him was certainly--as it appeared--not to be over the bridge of Alba. From the 11th to the 14th Howard’s and da Costa’s brigades held the place without further molestation. Their modest casualty list, on the afternoon of the 10th and the morning hours of the 11th, had been 21 men killed and 3 officers and 89 men wounded: 8 killed and 36 wounded were Portuguese. The 1/92nd with 38 men hit was the battalion that suffered most[160]. The French loss had been a little greater--apparently 2 officers killed and 6 wounded[161], with some 150 casualties in the rank and file: the 45th Ligne with 5 officers hurt contributed the largest total to the list. The cannonade at Alba settled nothing: on its second day the French commanders were taking counsel together, Soult, the King, Jourdan, with Souham and Clausel (representing the Army of Portugal) were all riding up and down the eastern bank of the Tormes, and seeking for the facts which must determine their next move[162]. Fortunately for the historian, after the debate, which was long and indecisive, Jourdan and Soult each wrote a formal letter of advice to the King that evening. On one point only were they agreed: it would be mad to attack Wellington on the position of San Cristobal, whose strength was well known to all the officers of the Army of Portugal, and had been increased during the last two days by the throwing up of a chain of redoubts armed with artillery. There remained two plans--Jourdan’s was a proposal to force the line of the Tormes between Huerta and Alba, by a frontal attack across the numerous fords which Marmont had used in the campaign of the previous July; Soult’s was a plan for turning Wellington’s right by going some distance up-stream south of Alba, and utilizing the fords of the Tormes between Alba and Salvatierra. In the main the question turned on the practicability of the fords, and this was varying from hour to hour. The rain, which had made Hill’s retreat and Soult’s advance so miserable to the troops, had stopped for the moment, and the river was falling. Of the numerous passages about Huerta, La Encina and Villa Gonzalo, Wellington had considered on the 9th that none were really practicable: on the 10th he wrote to Hill that ‘the river has certainly fallen since yesterday evening, but I believe that no infantry soldier can pass yet, even if a cavalry soldier can, and