never comes to the short-sighted or ignorant--he realised that retreat would be folly, and that his only hope of success lay in immediately assuming the offensive. Massing his Artillery, he desired Major Duncan to keep up a powerful fire, while he organized his force into divisions for the attack. Of this fire Napier writes that it ravaged the French ranks. As soon as the Infantry had formed, General Graham advanced his Artillery to a more favourable position, whence, as he afterwards wrote, it kept up a most destructive fire on the French columns now advancing. The right division of the English, under General Dilkes, and the left, under Colonel Wheatley, encountered respectively the French divisions under Generals Ruffin and Laval. The Infantry regiments engaged were the Guards, 28th, 7th, 67th, and 87th,--the flank companies of the 1st Battalion 9th Foot, 2nd Battalion 47th, and 2nd Battalion 82nd, besides part of the 20th Portuguese Regiment. Where all behaved with gallantry, it may seem invidious to select any particular regiment for notice; but, at a most critical moment, the defeat of General Laval’s division was completed by a magnificent advance of the 87th Regiment. Both the French divisions were borne backwards from the hill; and, uniting, attempted to reform and make another attack. But their attempt was frustrated by the fire of the Artillery, which from being terrific, as Napier termed it, became now [Sidenote: Napier, vol. iii. p. 446.] “close, rapid, and murderous, and rendered the attempt vain.” Marshal Victor, therefore, withdrew his troops from the field, and the English, having been twenty-four hours under arms and without food, were too exhausted to pursue. In this battle, which only lasted one hour and a half, over 1200 were killed and wounded on the side of the English, and more than 2000 on the side of the French. Six guns and 400 prisoners also fell into the hands of the conquerors. Of the conduct of his troops generally, General Graham wrote to Lord Liverpool that nothing less than the almost unparalleled exertions of every officer, the invincible bravery of every soldier, and the most determined devotion to the honour of His Majesty’s arms in all, could have achieved this brilliant success, against such a formidable enemy so [Sidenote: To Admiral Sir C. Cotton, dated Cadiz, 7 March, 1811.] posted. Sir Richard Keats, the Admiral on the station, who had superintended the transport of the troops to Algesiras, wrote that the British troops, led by their gallant and able commander,--forgetting, on the sight of the enemy, their own fatigue and privations, and regardless of advantage in the numbers and situation of the enemy,--gained by their determined valour a victory uneclipsed by any of the brave achievements of the British army.