The division advanced in silence from its bivouac-ground towards the remote side of the town; the sky was clouded and the air thick with watery exhalations, and as the troops approached the lofty fortress, a low murmur was heard in the trenches, lights were seen passing to and fro along the ramparts, and the loud voices of the French sentinels proclaimed that all was well in Badajoz. The garrison watching from its lofty station the approach of its adversaries, stood prepared with every means of destruction which art could devise, and each soldier had three loaded muskets beside him, that the first fire might be quick and fatal. As the British soldiers approached the fortress with ladders and weapons, the sight of the formidable works and towering walls awakened in their resolute hearts an eagerness for the assault, and they advanced with audacity to meet that fiery destruction which their adversaries were prepared to pour down upon them. Major-General Walker's brigade, led by the KING'S OWN, having gained the bank of the Guadiana, advanced along the margin of the river, and the sound of their footsteps being rendered inaudible by the rippling of the waters, they reached the French guard-house at the barrier-gate of the Olivença road undiscovered; but at that moment an explosion took place at the breach, and the moon emerging from behind the clouds, the French discovered the column and gave the alarm. The glacis was mined, the ditch deep, the scarp thirty feet high, and the parapet lined with bold troops; yet the British soldiers springing forward under a sharp fire commenced hewing down the wooden barrier at the covered way. The Portuguese, being panic-stricken, threw down the scaling-ladders, but others snatched them up again, and having forced the barrier, jumped into the ditch. The guiding engineer was killed, and the ladders were found too short, for the walls were generally above thirty feet high; at the same time a mine was sprung beneath the soldiers' feet, beams of wood and live shells were rolled over on their heads, showers of grape swept the ditch, and man after man dropped dead from the ladders. At length three ladders were reared against a corner of the bastion, where the scarp was only twenty feet high, and one man climbing an embrasure which had no gun, and was only stopped by a gabion, was pushed to the top by his comrades; he drew others after him until many had gained the summit; and although the French opened a sharp fire against them from both flanks, and from a house in front, yet their numbers increased and they could not be driven back. Half the KING'S OWN regiment entered the town to dislodge the enemy from the houses, while the others pushed along the ramparts, and, by hard fighting, won three bastions. Major-General Walker, leading the attack of the last bastion, fell covered with wounds; and several of the soldiers observing a lighted match on the ground, cried out, "A mine." The troops retiring hastily for fear