of Badajoz, they were fired upon by the guns of that fortress. The regiment then halted and retired to secure the prisoners, and captured artillery and baggage. Some of the French drivers, refusing to surrender, were sabred, and the mules were mounted by men of the THIRTEENTH. The retreat was continued several miles, the men in high spirits at their wonderful success; at length they were met by the retiring French infantry, and by all the beaten cavalry which could find refuge with it. For a few exhausted dragoons to have engaged that body of troops would have been madness, and the THIRTEENTH were forced to abandon their captures and make a detour to the right to join the army, which they effected, and went into bivouac in the neighbourhood of Campo Mayor. The loss of the regiment was twelve men and seven horses killed; Lieutenants William Slater Smith and Frederick Geale, Adjutant Holmes, Quarter-master Greenham, one serjeant, twenty-eight rank and file, wounded; one serjeant, nineteen rank and file, and forty-four horses missing. Three hundred French were killed, wounded, and taken prisoners; the French colonel, Chamarin, of the Twenty-sixth Dragoons, was killed in single combat by _Corporal Logan_, of the THIRTEENTH Light Dragoons, which, with many other instances of individual bravery in this sharply contested affair, is recorded in the books of the regiment[5]. The THIRTEENTH, on this occasion, evinced the superiority of their discipline over their equally brave and numerically superior adversaries, by their greater quickness in rallying after the different attacks,--and this circumstance, with the skilful and determined use of their weapons, greatly tended to their brilliant success in this well-fought field. An officer, who made his escape from Badajoz a few days after this affair, reported that the French infantry had brought in a great number of severely wounded cavalry soldiers--chiefly sabre wounds[6]. Preparations were subsequently made for besieging Badajoz, and the Guadiana was passed in boats in the early part of April; on the night of the 16th of April an outpost of the THIRTEENTH Dragoons, which had been relieved by a squadron of Portuguese cavalry, was surprised by a body of French troops from _Olivenza_, and only twenty men escaped. The loss was three men wounded, Captain Morris, Lieutenant Moss, fifty soldiers, and sixty-five horses taken prisoners. The imagined security of their position, induced by the Portuguese squadron being in their front, and their consequent neglect of due precautions, led to the surprise of this party, by an overwhelming force of the enemy, when totally unprepared for resistance. This was not forgotten,--and the THIRTEENTH never gave occasion for the repetition of a similar severe but wholesome lesson during the remainder of the war.