3º. _Left attack._ The light division, posted behind the convent of Francisco, was to send three companies of the ninety-fifth to scour the “_fausse braye_” to the right, and so connect the left and centre attacks. At the same time a storming party preceded by the third caçadores carrying hay-sacks, and followed by Vandeleur’s and Andrew Barnard’s brigades, was to make for the small breach, and when the “_fausse braye_” was carried to detach to their right, to assist the main assault, and to the left to force a passage at the Salamanca gate. 4º. _The false attack._ This was an escalade to be made by Pack’s Portuguese on the St. Jago gate at the opposite side of the town. The right attack was commanded by colonel O’Toole of the caçadores. Five hundred volunteers commanded by major Manners of the seventy-fourth with a forlorn hope under Mr. Mackie of the eighty-eighth, composed the storming party of the third division. Three hundred volunteers led by major George Napier of the fifty-second with a forlorn hope of twenty-five men under Mr. Gurwood, of the same regiment, composed the storming party of the light division. [Sidenote: Appendix, No. VII. Sect. 1.] All the troops reached their different posts without seeming to attract the attention of the enemy, but before the signal was given, and while lord Wellington, who in person had been pointing out the lesser breach to major Napier, was still at the convent of Francisco, the attack on the right commenced, and was instantly taken up along the whole line. Then the space between the army and the ditch was covered with soldiers and ravaged by a tempest of grape from the ramparts. The storming parties of the third division jumped out of the parallel when the first shout arose, but so rapid had been the movements on their right, that before they could reach the ditch, Ridge, Dunkin, and Campbell with the fifth, seventy-seventh, and ninety-fourth regiments, had already scoured the “_fausse braye_,” and were pushing up the great breach, amidst the bursting of shells, the whistling of grape and muskets, and the shrill cries of the French who were driven fighting behind the retrenchments. There however they rallied, and aided by the musketry from the houses, made hard battle for their post; none would go back on either side, and yet the British could not get forward, and men and officers, falling in heaps, choked up the passage, which from minute to minute was raked with grape, from two guns, flanking the top of the breach at the distance of a few yards; thus striving and trampling alike upon the dead and the wounded these brave men maintained the combat.