Thus maltreated, the latter drew back, and, at the same moment, the German legion, being sorely pressed, got into confusion. Hill’s and Campbell’s divisions, on the extremities of the line, still held fast; but the centre of the British was absolutely broken, and the fate of the day seemed to incline in favour of the French, when, suddenly, colonel Donellan, with the forty-eighth regiment, was seen advancing through the midst of the disordered masses. At first, it seemed as if this regiment must be carried away by the retiring crowds, but, wheeling back by companies, it let them pass through the intervals, and then, resuming its proud and beautiful line, marched against the right of the pursuing columns, and plied them with such a destructive musketry, and closed upon them with such a firm and regular pace, that the forward movement of the French was checked. The guards and the Germans immediately rallied; a brigade of light cavalry came up from the second line at a trot; the artillery battered the enemy’s flanks without intermission, and the French, beginning to waver, soon lost their advantage, and the battle was restored. In all actions there is one critical and decisive moment which will give the victory to the general who knows how to seize it. When the guards first made their rash charge, sir Arthur Wellesley, foreseeing the issue of it, had ordered the forty-eighth down from the hill, although a rough battle was going on there; and, at the same time, he directed Cotton’s light cavalry to advance. These dispositions gained the day. The French relaxed their efforts by degrees; the fire of the English grew hotter; and their loud and confident shouts--sure augury of success--were heard along the whole line. In the hands of a great general, Joseph’s guards and the reserve, which were yet entire, might have restored the combat: but all combination was at an end on the French side. The fourth corps, beaten back on the left with the loss of ten guns, was in confusion; the troops in the great valley on the right, amazed at the furious charge of the twenty-third, and awed by the sight of four distinct lines of cavalry, still in reserve, remained stationary. No impression had been made on the hill; Lapisse himself was mortally wounded, and, at last, his division giving way, the whole army retired to its position, from whence it had descended to the attack. This retrograde movement was covered by skirmishers and an increasing fire of artillery; and the British, reduced to less than fourteen thousand sabres and bayonets, and exhausted by toil, and the want of food, could not pursue. The Spanish army was incapable of any evolution, and about six o’clock all hostility ceased, each army holding the position of the morning. But the battle was scarcely over when, the dry grass and shrubs taking fire, a volume of flames passed with inconceivable rapidity across a part of the field, scorching, in its course, both the dead and the wounded.