A little after day-break, on the 11th, two French parties were observed, the one of infantry near Villa de Puerco, the other of cavalry at Barquillo. An open country on the right would have enabled the six squadrons to get between the infantry in Villa de Puerco and their point of retreat. This was circuitous, and Crawfurd preferred pushing straight through a stone enclosure as the shortest road: the enclosure proved difficult, the squadrons were separated, and the French, two hundred strong, had time to draw up in square on a rather steep rise of land; yet so far from the edge, as not to be seen until the ascent was gained. The two squadrons which first arrived, galloped in upon them, and the charge was rough and pushed home, but failed. The troopers received the fire of the square in front and on both sides, and in passing saw and heard the French captain Guache and his serjeant-major exhorting the men to shoot carefully. Scarcely was this charge over when the enemy’s cavalry came out of Barquillos, and the two squadrons riding against it, made twenty-nine men and two officers prisoners, a few being also wounded. Meanwhile colonel Talbot mounting the hill with four squadrons of the fourteenth dragoons, bore gallantly in upon captain Guache; but the latter again opened such a fire, that Talbot himself and fourteen men went down close to the bayonets, and the stout Frenchman made good his retreat; after which Crawfurd returned to the camp, having had thirty-two troopers, besides the colonel, killed or wounded in this unfortunate affair. That day Ciudad Rodrigo surrendered, and the Spanish troops, grieved and irritated, separated from the light division, and marching by the pass of Perales, rejoined Romana; but Crawfurd assumed a fresh position, a mile and a half from Almeida, and demanded a reinforcement of two battalions. Lord Wellington replied that he would give him two divisions, if he could hold his ground; but that he could not do so; yet, knowing the temper of the man, he repeated his former orders _not to fight beyond the Coa_. On the 21st, the enemy’s cavalry again advanced, Fort Conception was blown up, and Crawfurd fell back to Almeida, apparently disposed to cross the Coa. Yet nothing was further from his thoughts. Braving the whole French army, he had kept with a weak division, for three months, within two hours march, of sixty thousand men, appropriating the resources of the plains entirely to himself; but this exploit, only to be appreciated by military men, did not satisfy his feverish thirst of distinction. Hitherto he had safely affronted a superior power, and forgetting that his stay beyond the Coa was a matter of sufferance, not real strength, with headstrong ambition, he resolved, in defiance of reason and of the reiterated orders of his general, to fight on the right bank. COMBAT OF THE COA.