within three days’ march, and a considerable body of cavalry and horse artillery was still nearer. But Lord Wellington had anxiously been looking for the opportunity which was now presented him: he was at dinner when information was brought him of this movement, which was made under cover of a heavy cannonade, and accompanied with skirmishers in his front and on his flank, and with a body of cavalry who made the British dragoons and light troops give way before them. But the generals of division had either misunderstood or ill executed their commander’s intentions, and they weakened their line by dangerously extending it: Lord Wellington at once perceived this; he rose in such haste as to overturn the table, exclaiming, that Marmont’s good genius had forsaken him: in an instant he was on horseback, and issued his orders for attack. The right he reinforced with the 5th division, placing it behind the village of Arapiles, on the right of the 4th, and with the 6th and 7th in reserve. These having taken their stations, he ordered Major-General Pakenham to move forward with the 3rd and General D’Urban’s cavalry, and two squadrons of the 14th light dragoons under Lieutenant-Colonel Hervey, in four columns, to turn the enemy’s left on the heights, while Brigadier-General Bradford’s brigade, the 5th division, under Lieutenant-General Leith, the 4th, under Lieutenant-General Cole, and the cavalry under Sir Stapleton Cotton, should attack them in front, supported in reserve by the 6th and 7th under Major-Generals Clinton and Hope, and D. Carlos d’España’s Spanish division; Brigadier-General Pack, with the 1st and 16th Portuguese regiments, was to support the left of the 4th division, by attacking the hill which the enemy held. The first and the light divisions occupied the ground on the left of the Arapiles in reserve.