Lord Wellington ascended in the interval between the 7th and 4th divisions. Just as he reached the summit of the range at one of its dips, Beresford and Colville, with the 3rd division, had carried a very high hill, crowned with a strong stockaded redoubt, which was, in fact, the key of the position, and looked down upon the whole range on both sides. The 40th suffered here from having pushed on too fast. The allies were now gaining the upper ridge on all sides, and the artillery attempted to follow: Ross’s troop was the only one which succeeded, and that by two hours’ of the utmost exertion, and by partly making a road. Sir Lowry, with the 4th division, reached the top at a lower part: two brigades of the enemy were formed upon a height on his left; and beyond them, on a very high point above Ascain, was a large and strong redoubt, manned by a battalion of infantry. The light division was toiling up the hill to the right of this work, and the Spaniards to the left. Sir Lowry attacked the brigades: there were two generals at their heads; but when the assailants came near, the French fired five or six rounds in rather an unsoldier-like hurry, and then moved hastily off, leaving the redoubt to its fate. Downie, seizing a colour, and waving it as he advanced on horseback at the head of his battalion, led on his men: they went against it gallantly, in spite of their officers, who behaved ill: the light division commenced an attack upon it, in which Colonel Barnard was wounded; and the 52nd lost a good many men here, before Lord Wellington’s orders for desisting and summoning the garrison could arrive. While this attack continued, the troops under Beresford got so far in the rear of the redoubt, that it was impossible for the garrison to retreat. They proved to be the first battalion of the 88th regiment, nearly 600 strong: their colonel had been promoted for his defence of S. Christoval’s, at the first siege of Badajoz: he hesitated, parleyed, and requested to confer with his officers, and subsequently with the non-commissioned officers; but it was in vain to resist, and there was no way to escape; so they surrendered, and laid down their arms on the glacis. Some of the men expressed their indignation in coarse and indecent language at finding themselves prisoners; and one serjeant, in particular, who wore the cross of the Legion of Honour, cursed his fortune, that after being present in the battles of Austerlitz and Wagram, he should now be captured in a redoubt!