The British troops in Portugal were commanded by General Mainhard Duke Schomberg, and he suggested active measures; but tardiness and inability were manifested by the Portuguese authorities, to so great an extent, that the Duke of Berwick invaded Portugal with a French and Spanish army, before the allies were prepared to take the field. The court of Lisbon was alarmed; Duke Schomberg solicited to be recalled; and the Earl of Galway was sent with reinforcements to Portugal. In the early part of the campaign, the THIRTEENTH foot were employed in the Alemtejo: they were reviewed at the camp at Estremos on the 21st of July, and were afterwards removed to Vimiera. After the summer heat had abated, the regiment joined the army, and penetrated into Spain as far as the bank of the Agueda, near Ciudad Rodrigo; but the Duke of Berwick had made so skilful a disposition of the French and Spanish forces under his orders, on the opposite side of the river, that the allies were prevented passing the stream, and the British troops returned to Portugal for winter quarters. In the meantime the important fortress of _Gibraltar_[9] had been captured by the combined English and Dutch fleets, and garrisoned by a body of marines under the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt. The capture of this fortress revived the hopes and expectations of the allies, and disconcerted the measures of King Philip, of Spain, and his grandfather Louis XIV.; a combined French and Spanish army was assembled to retake Gibraltar, and the French monarch, who possessed, at that period, a naval force of great magnitude, directed his fleet to co-operate in this service. The troops under the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt defended the fortress with great gallantry, and eventually applied to the commander of the forces in Portugal for aid, when a battalion of the first and second foot guards, the THIRTEENTH and thirty-fifth regiments, the Dutch regiment of Waes, and the Portuguese regiment of Algarve, were selected to reinforce the garrison.