Before day-break on the 27th, the French formed five columns of attack; three under Ney, opposite to the convent, and two under Reynier, at St. Antonio de Cantara, these points being about three miles asunder. Reynier’s troops had comparatively easier ground before them, and were in the midst of the picquets and skirmishers of the third division almost as soon as they could be perceived to be in movement. The allies resisted vigorously, and six guns played along the ascent with grape, but in less than half an hour the French were close upon the summit, so swiftly and with such astonishing power and resolution did they scale the mountain, overthrowing every thing that opposed their progress. The right of the third division was forced back; the eighth Portuguese regiment was broken to pieces, and the hostile masses gained the highest part of the crest, just between the third and the fifth divisions. The leading battalions immediately established themselves amongst the crowning rocks, and a confused mass wheeled to the right, intending to sweep the summit of the sierra, but at that moment lord Wellington caused two guns to open with grape upon their flank, while a heavy musketry was still poured into their front, and, in a little time, the forty-fifth and the eighty-eighth regiments charged so furiously that even fresh men could not have withstood them. The French, quite spent with their previous efforts, opened a straggling fire, and both parties, mingling together, went down the mountain side with a mighty clamour and confusion; the dead and dying strewing the way even to the bottom of the valley.