Meanwhile the stormers of the light division, who had three hundred yards of ground to clear, would not wait for the hay-bags, but with extraordinary swiftness running to the crest of the glacis, jumped down the scarp, a depth of eleven feet, and rushed up the “_fausse braye_” under a smashing discharge of grape and musketry. The bottom of the ditch was dark and intricate, and the forlorn hope took too much to their left; but the storming party went straight to the breach, which was so contracted that a gun placed lengthwise across the top nearly blocked up the opening. Here the forlorn hope rejoined the stormers, but when two-thirds of the ascent were gained, the leading men, crushed together by the narrowness of the place, staggered under the weight of the enemy’s fire; and such is the instinct of self-defence, that although no man had been allowed to load, every musket in the crowd was snapped. The commander, major Napier, was at this moment stricken to the earth by a grape-shot which shattered his arm, but he called on his men to trust to their bayonets, and all the officers simultaneously sprang to the front, when the charge was renewed with a furious shout, and the entrance was gained. The supporting regiments coming up in sections, abreast, then reached the rampart, the fifty-second wheeled to the left, the forty-third to the right, and the place was won. During this contest which lasted only a few minutes, after the “_fausse braye_” was passed, the fighting had continued at the great breach with unabated violence, but when the forty-third, and the stormers of the light division, came pouring down upon the right flank of the French, the latter bent before the storm; at the same moment, the explosion of three wall magazines destroyed many persons, and the third division with a mighty effort broke through the retrenchments. The garrison indeed still fought for a moment in the streets, but finally fled to the castle, where Mr. Gurwood who though wounded, had been amongst the foremost at the lesser breach, received the governor’s sword. The allies now plunged into the streets from all quarters, for O’Toole’s attack was also successful, and at the other side of the town Pack’s Portuguese, meeting no resistance, had entered the place, and the reserves also came in. Then throwing off the restraints of discipline the troops committed frightful excesses. The town was fired in three or four places, the soldiers menaced their officers, and shot each other; many were killed in the market-place, intoxication soon increased the tumult, disorder every where prevailed, and at last, the fury rising to an absolute madness, a fire was wilfully lighted in the middle of the great magazine, when the town and all in it would have been blown to atoms, but for the energetic courage of some officers and a few soldiers who still preserved their senses. [Sidenote: Captain Cooke’s Memoirs, vol. i.]