General Girard, who commanded the French division, escaped, with about five hundred men, by ascending the Sierra de Montanches, when the second battalion of the THIRTY-NINTH was ordered to pursue them; but the French throwing away their knapsacks, and in many instances their appointments, they marched with such rapidity, that the battalion could only come up with the rear-guard, which occasionally occupied most favorable positions to cover their retreat. After some skirmishing the French descended into the plain: the battalion being excessively fatigued by a continued and harassing march, from two o’clock in the morning until six in the evening, Brevet-Lieut.-Colonel Patrick Lindesay, then in command, finding further pursuit unavailing, tried the success of a “_ruse de guerre_,” by riding up to the enemy with a flag of truce, and proposing to General Girard to surrender, as no doubt he would be intercepted by the British cavalry on the plain, and that a Spanish corps under General Morillo was at hand. A captain and twenty men left the column, and surrendered to the battalion, then rapidly advancing in pursuit. The French general, mortified by the surprise and loss of his division, declared he would rather die than surrender. Unfortunately only one troop of cavalry arrived, and Morillo’s force was unable to come up, so that General Girard, and the remainder of his division, escaped by the bridge of Medellin. In this affair the second battalion had Captain Hardress Saunderson, one serjeant, and nine rank and file wounded. On the following morning the second battalion rejoined the division at Arroyo dos Molinos, and returned to Albuquerque. [Sidenote: 1st Batt.] Meanwhile the first battalion, under the command of Lieut.-Colonel the Honorable Robert William O’Callaghan, had embarked from Sicily on the 20th of August 1811, to join the army in the Peninsula, and arrived at Lisbon in October following. The battalion moved towards the frontiers of Portugal, and on its arrival at Crato was joined by the second battalion on the 24th of December 1811, commanded by Brevet-Lieut.-Colonel Patrick Lindesay. [Sidenote: 2nd Batt.] On the 25th of December 1811, the second battalion transferred all its effective men to the first battalion, after which the skeleton marched to Lisbon, where it embarked for England on the 27th of January following. [Sidenote: 1st Batt.] The first battalion, thus completed to twelve hundred rank and file, proceeded on the 26th of December to join the second division of the army under Lieut.-General Rowland Hill. [Sidenote: 1812. 2nd Batt.] The portion of the second battalion, which had proceeded to England, disembarked at Weymouth on the 2nd of March 1812. [Sidenote: 1st Batt.]