Early on the morning of the 25th the French army were in motion; the cavalry, under General Montbrun, supported by several battalions of infantry, advanced upon the position held by our 3rd Division; but the over-zeal of Montbrun, and the impetuosity of his cavalry, would not allow them to keep pace with the infantry, who were in consequence completely distanced at the onset, and never regained their place during the day. The ground occupied by the 3rd Division was of considerable extent, and might, to an ordinary observer, appear to be such as to place that corps in some peril of being defeated in detail: for instance, the 5th Regiment, supported by the 77th, two weak battalions, barely reckoning seven hundred men, were considerably to the left, and in advance of El Bodon, and were distant upwards of one mile from the 45th, 74th, and 88th; while the 83rd and 94th British, and the 9th and 21st Portuguese were little, if anything, closer to those two battalions. Some squadrons of the 1st German Hussars and 11th Light Dragoons supported the advance, and a brigade of nine-pounders, drawn by mules, and served by Portuguese gunners, under the command of a German major, named Arentschildt, crowned the causeway occupied by the 5th and 77th. These dispositions were barely completed when Montbrun, at the head of his veteran host, came thundering over the plain at a sweeping pace; ten of his squadrons dashed across the ravine that separated them from Arentschildt’s battery, which opened a frightful fire of grape and canister at point blank distance. But although the havoc made by those guns was great, it in no way damped the ardour of the French horse; they panted for glory, and nothing of this kind could check their impetuosity; once fairly over the ravine, they speedily mounted the face of the causeway, and desperately, but heroically, charged the battery. Nothing could resist the torrent—the battery was captured and the cannoniers massacred at their guns. In an instant the 5th, commanded by the gallant Major Ridge, formed line, threw in an effective running fire, steadily ascended the height, charged the astonished French Dragoons, and having repulsed and poured a volley into the latter, as they rushed down the opposite face of the hill, recaptured the guns, with which, joined by the 77th, they deliberately retired across the open plain after a long and determined stand against the enemy’s cavalry and artillery, and only retreating when the approach of a strong body of French infantry rendered such a movement imperative.