Scarcely was the line formed, when Kellerman came up with two divisions of dragoons and some artillery, and, without hesitating, sent one division to outflank the Spanish right, and, with the other, charged fiercely in upon the front. The Spanish horsemen, flying without a blow, rode straight over the bridge, and the infantry of the right being thus exposed, were broken and sabred; but those on the left stood fast and repulsed the enemy. The duke rallied his cavalry on the other side of the river, and brought them back to the fight, but the French were also reinforced, and once more the Spanish horse fled without a blow. By this time it was dark, and the infantry of the left wing, under Mendizabel and Carrera, being unbroken, made good their retreat across the river, yet not without difficulty, and under the fire of some French infantry, which arrived just in the dusk. During the night the duke retreated upon Tamames unmolested, but at day-break a French patrol coming up with this rear, his whole army threw away their arms and fled outright. Kellerman having, meanwhile entered Salamanca, did not pursue, yet the dispersion was complete. After this defeat, Del Parque rallied his army in the mountains behind Tamames, and, in ten or twelve days, again collected about twenty thousand men; they were however without artillery, scarcely any had preserved their arms, and such was their distress for provisions, that two months afterwards, when the British arrived on the northern frontier, the peasantry still spoke with horror of the sufferings of these famished soldiers. Many actually died of want, and every village was filled with sick. Yet the mass neither dispersed nor murmured! For Spaniards, though hasty in revenge and feeble in battle, are patient, to the last degree, in suffering. [Sidenote: Lord Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Dec. 7, 1809. MSS.]