Erskine’s line, consisting of five battalions of infantry and six guns, being now formed in such a manner that it outflanked the French right, tending towards the ford of the Redinha, was reinforced with two regiments of dragoons; meanwhile Picton seized the wooded heights protecting the French left, and thus Ney’s position was laid bare. Nevertheless, that marshal observing that lord Wellington, deceived as to his real numbers, was bringing the mass of the allied troops into line; far from retreating, even charged Picton’s skirmishers, and continued to hold his ground with an astonishing confidence if we consider his position; for the third division was nearer to the village and bridge than his right, and there were already cavalry and guns enough on the plain to overwhelm him. In this posture both sides remained for about an hour, when, three shots were fired from the British centre as a signal for a forward movement, and a most splendid spectacle of war was exhibited. The woods seemed alive with troops; and in a few moments thirty thousand men, forming three gorgeous lines of battle, were stretched across the plain; but bending on a gentle curve, and moving majestically onwards, while horsemen and guns, springing forward simultaneously from the centre and from the left wing, charged under a general volley from the French battalions: the latter were instantly hidden by the smoke, and when that cleared away no enemy was to be seen. Ney keenly watching the progress of this grand formation, had opposed Picton’s foremost skirmishers with his left, and, at the same moment, withdrew the rest of his people with such rapidity, that he gained the village ere the cavalry could touch him: the utmost efforts of Picton’s skirmishers and of the horse-artillery scarcely enabled them to gall the hindmost of the French left with their fire. One howitzer was, indeed, dismounted close to the bridge, but the village of Redinha was in flames; and the marshal wishing to confirm the courage of his soldiers at the commencement of the retreat, in person superintended the carrying it off: this he effected, yet with the loss of fifteen or twenty men, and with great danger to himself, for the British guns were thundering on his rear, and the light troops of the third division, chasing like heated blood hounds, passed the river almost at the same time with the French. The reserves of the latter cannonaded the bridge from the heights beyond, but a fresh disposition of attack being made by lord Wellington, while the third division continued to press the left, Ney fell back upon the main body, then at Condeixa, ten miles in the rear.