Crawfurd’s whole force under arms consisted of four thousand infantry, eleven hundred cavalry, and six guns, and his position, one mile and a half in length, extended in an oblique line towards the Coa. The cavalry piquets were upon the plain in his front, his right on some broken ground, and his left resting on an unfinished tower, eight hundred yards from Almeida, was defended by the guns of that fortress; but his back was on the edge of the ravine forming the channel of the Coa, and the bridge was more than a mile distant, in the bottom of the chasm. A stormy night ushered in the 24th of July. The troops, drenched with rain, were under arms before day-light, expecting to retire, when a few pistol shots in front, followed by an order for the cavalry reserves and the guns to advance, gave notice of the enemy’s approach; and as the morning cleared, twenty-four thousand French infantry, five thousand cavalry, and thirty pieces of artillery were observed marching beyond the Turones. The British line was immediately contracted and brought under the edge of the ravine; but meanwhile Ney, who had observed Crawfurd’s false disposition, came down with the stoop of an eagle. Four thousand horsemen and a powerful artillery swept the plain. The allied cavalry gave back, and Loison’s division coming up at a charging pace, made towards the centre and left of the position. While the French were thus pouring onward, several ill-judged changes were made on the English side, part of the troops were advanced, others drawn back, and the forty-third most unaccountably placed within an enclosure of solid masonry, at least ten feet high, situated on the left of the road with but one narrow outlet about half-musket shot down the ravine. While thus imprisoned, the firing in front redoubled, the cavalry, the artillery, and the caçadores successively passed by in retreat, and the sharp clang of the ninety-fifth rifle was heard along the edge of the plain above. A few moments later, and the forty-third would have been surrounded; but that here, as in every other part of this field, the quickness and knowledge of the battalion officers remedied the faults of the general. One minute sufficed to loosen some large stones, a powerful effort burst the enclosure, and the regiment, re-formed in column of companies, was the next instant up with the riflemen; there was no room to array the line, no time for any thing but battle, every captain carried off his company as an independent body, and joining as he could with the ninety-fifth or fifty-second, the whole presented a mass of skirmishers, acting in small parties and under no regular command; yet each confident in the courage and discipline of those on his right and left, and all regulating their movements by a common discretion and keeping together with surprising vigour.