The summit was thus recovered; and the 48th regiment and the first battalion of detachments were immediately brought forward, and, in conjunction with the 29th and colonel Donkin’s brigade, presented a formidable front of defence; and in good time, for the troops thus beaten back were only a part of the 9th French regiment, forming the advance of Ruffin’s division; but the two other regiments of that division had lost their way in the ravine; hence the attack had not ceased, but only subsided for a time. Lapisse was in motion, and soon after opened his fire against the German legion; and all the battalions of the 9th, being re-formed in one mass, again advanced up the face of the hill with redoubled vigour. The fighting then became vehement; and, in the darkness, the opposing flashes of the musketry shewed with what a resolute spirit the struggle was maintained, for the combatants were scarcely twenty yards asunder, and for a time the event seemed doubtful; but soon the well known shout of the British soldier was heard, rising above the din of arms, and the enemy’s broken troops were driven once more into the ravine below. Lapisse, who had made some impression on the German legion, immediately abandoned his false attack, and the fighting of the 27th ceased. The British lost about eight hundred men, and the French about a thousand on that day. The bivouac fires now blazed up on both sides, and the French and British soldiers became quiet; but, about twelve o’clock, the Spaniards on the right being alarmed at some horse in their front, opened a prodigious peal of musketry and artillery, which continued for twenty minutes without any object; and during the night, the whole line was frequently disturbed by desultory firing from both the Spanish and English troops, by which several men and officers were unfortunately slain. The duke of Belluno, who had learned, from the prisoners, the exact position of the Spaniards, until then unknown to the French generals, now reported his own failure to the king, and proposed that a second attempt should be made in the morning, at day-light; but marshal Jourdan opposed this, as being a partial enterprize, which could not lead to any great result. Victor, however, was earnest for a trial, and, resting his representation on his intimate knowledge of the ground, pressed the matter so home, that he won Joseph’s assent, and immediately made dispositions for the attack. The guns of the first corps, being formed in one mass, on the height corresponding to that on which the English left was posted, were enabled to command the great valley on their own right, to range the summit of the hill in their front, and obliquely to search the whole of the British line to the left, as far as the great redoubt between the allied armies. Ruffin’s division was placed in advance, and Villatte’s in rear, of the artillery; but the former kept one regiment close to the ravine.