The forts were now closely pressed. On the 23rd, the heavy guns being brought back, a battery to breach San Cajetano was armed with four pieces; yet the line of fire being oblique only beat down the parapet and knocked away the palisades. An escalade of that fort and La Merced was tried at ten o’clock, yet failed in half an hour with a loss of one hundred and twenty men and officers; the wounded were brought off next day under truce, and the enemy had all the credit of the fight. General Bowes, whose rank might have excused his leading so small a force, being wounded early in this assault, was having his hurt dressed when he heard the troops were yielding, whereupon he returned to the fight and fell. Want of powder now suspended the siege until the 26th, when a convoy arrived. Then the second and third batteries were re-armed, and the field-pieces replaced on the neighbouring convent. The iron howitzers, throwing hot shot, soon set the convent within San Vincente on fire; but the garrison extinguished the flames and this balanced combat continued during the night. In the morning the besiegers’ fire was redoubled, the convent was in a blaze, the breach of Cajetano improved, and a fresh storming party was assembled, when the white flag waved from Cajetano. Negotiation ensued, but Wellington, judging it an artifice to gain time, ordered a double assault, to oppose which Cajetano scarcely fired a shot, and the flames raged so at Vincente no opposition could be made. Seven hundred prisoners, thirty pieces of artillery, provisions, arms, clothing, and a secure passage over the Tormes, were the immediate fruits of this capture: not the less prized that the breaches were found more formidable than those at Rodrigo, and a storm would have been very doubtful if the garrison could have gained time to extinguish the flames in San Vincente. The allies had ninety killed, and their whole loss was five hundred men and officers, of which one hundred and sixty men with fifty horses fell outside Salamanca, the rest in the siege. COMBATS BETWEEN THE DUERO AND THE TORMES. (July, 1812.) When the forts were taken Marmont retreated. Wellington pursued by easy marches, and on the 2nd of July inflicted a slight loss on the rear-guard at the bridge of Tordesillas; it would have been a great one if he had not been deceived by a false report that the French had broken the bridge the night before.