Colonel Townshend Wilson, in his 'Memoir of the Duke of Berwick' (1883), gives a vivid description of the stubbornly contested three hours' conflict--in which 'never did Briton and Dutch face the foe more steadily.' They were however out-numbered and out-generalled--and on this day the old Das Minas might have been seen, accompanied by a young lady, his mistress, in a gay riding-habit, cantering to and fro among the allied troops under fire; but an unmannerly shot emptied her saddle. The end of the battle is thus described: 'From stern resistance the cosmopolitan infantry suddenly changed to brilliant attack. With a tremendous effort they beat down all opponents. Two battalions, irresistible in might, trampled down the enemy's double line, pressed even to the walls of Almansa. Superb audacity in front of well-led soldiers is sometimes foolishness. Don José de Amezaga, with two squadrons, charging the enemy, blown and in disarray, cut them to pieces.... Then the wondrous English and Huguenot foot, quite _en l'air_, deprived of support, most of their superior officers laid low, thought of retreat. The manœuvre was impracticable. Hundreds of men were trampled under the hoofs of exulting cavaliers. Six battalions, crushed into a crowd, had to lay down their arms. But thirteen battalions (five of which were English), holding grimly together, under Count Dhona, and Major-General Shrimpton of the Guards, retired in fine order to a hill about a league from the field.' Being, however, without provisions, these gallant fellows were compelled on the following day to surrender to their antagonists. The Spanish loss was 2,000; that of the Allies double that number, and eighty-eight British officers, including Brigadier Killigrew and Colonels Dormer and Roper, were amongst the slain. Among Brigadier Robert's small effects were twenty-two pistoles, a bay horse, a pair of gold buttons, and his watch and seal--as appears from some family letters preserved among the 'Additional MSS.' in the British Museum. He seems to have found life a 'fitful fever,' for in his very last letter to his brother--as 'T. K.' has endorsed it--he says that he is 'verre wery of sarvin in this Hott Contre.' But he was a courageous soldier; for his nephew, Major Henry Killigrew, of the Irish Carabineers, who seems to have also been present at the battle, writes that 'no man there gave up his life with greater bravery' than his uncle did. General Robert Killigrew, in fact, appears to have deserved the place which he attained amongst the Worthies of England at Westminster.