It was the first time he had been in action, and no old soldier could have acted better. The French Voltigeurs (37th Regiment) came close to the guns; and one was killed only eight paces off. An immense column showing themselves in the ravine, we, with three cheers, gave them a few rounds of case and round-shot together, at about seventy paces distance, which drove them back.” The same officer, who was quoted above as alluding to the services of his brother’s troop at the Coa, wrote of Busaco: [Sidenote: ‘Memoirs of Sir H. D. Ross.’] “I will venture to assert that the greatest loss the enemy sustained was by our Artillery; and the guns that had the most duty, and, I believe I might say, that were best placed for effect--even if nothing is said of the admirable manner in which the guns were fought--were those of Hew’s troop.... Several officers who remained on the field the day after the retreat, among others General Crawford himself, were convinced, more than those who only looked on it from the heights, of the immense slaughter the enemy sustained from the Shrapnel shells thrown from my brother’s guns, aided for a short time by those of Captain Bull’s troop.” This opinion, which, coming from a brother, might perhaps be considered more indulgent than just, was confirmed by the great historian of the war. In the resistance offered to the attack of Loison’s division, Napier says that Ross’s guns were worked with incredible quickness, and their shot swept through the advancing columns. The attack having failed, Crawford’s Artillery, with which was the gallant Chestnut Troop, was equally useful against the attack of Marchaud’s division, which followed. “It heavily smote,” writes Napier, “the flank of Marchaud’s people in the pine-wood; and Ney, who was there in person, after sustaining this murderous cannonade for an hour, relinquished that attack also.” [Sidenote: Lord Wellington to Lord Liverpool, dated Coimbra, 30 Sept. 1810.] Well might Lord Wellington say, “I am particularly indebted to ... Brigadier-General Howorth and the Artillery.”