“General Graham has returned to the Isla, after having fought the hardest action that has been fought yet. The Spaniards left him very much to his own exertions. The Spanish General is to be brought to a court-martial.” In a letter of the 27th of March to the Earl of Liverpool, Secretary of State, Lieut.-General Viscount Wellington expressed similar sentiments to the foregoing, and added:— “I am convinced that His Royal Highness the Prince Regent will duly appreciate the promptitude with which Lieut.-General Graham decided to attack the enemy in the important position of which they had obtained possession; the vigour with which he carried that decision into execution, and the gallantry displayed by all the officers and troops upon that glorious occasion.” The EIGHTY-SEVENTH having returned to Cadiz, after the battle of Barrosa, remained there until the 10th of October, when it embarked with a brigade under the command of Colonel Skerrett, of the Forty-seventh regiment, and landed at _Tarifa_ on the 15th of that month. A strong division of the French army, amounting to ten thousand men, under the immediate orders of General Laval, invested the town of _Tarifa_ on the 20th of December 1811. The garrison consisted of a thousand British, and about seven hundred Spanish troops, and was commanded by Colonel Skerrett. In the night of the 29th the enemy fired salvos of grape on the breach, and on the 30th the breaching fire was renewed. A heavy rain filled the bed of the river during the night, and the torrent bringing down planks, fascines, gabions and dead bodies from the French camp, broke the palisades, and bent the portcullis backward. The surge of the waters also injured the defences behind the breach. After a heavy cannonading and bombardment, with considerable skirmishing, a breach in the walls was effected, and preparations were made for storming on the 31st of December. The post of the EIGHTY-SEVENTH was at the breach; and about eight o’clock in the morning of the 31st, the French troops, amounting to two thousand chosen men, composed of all the grenadiers and voltigeurs of the army, advanced thereto, where they were received by the EIGHTY-SEVENTH with three cheers, the battalion at the same time pouring in a most tremendous and well directed fire, which, for a moment, checked the enemy, who, as if to escape the fire, ran with desperation towards the breach, which they found impracticable; they then hurried along the wall, to endeavour to force the portcullis, but without effect, on which they fled precipitately to their own lines. During the attack, the drums and fifes of the regiment played the favourite Irish airs of _Patrick’s Day_ and _Garryowen_, and nothing but the steadiness and discipline of the corps could have prevented them from pursuing the enemy. The following eloquent description of this assault is given by Lieut.-General Sir William Napier, K.C.B., in his History of the Peninsular War.