2º. The audacious manner in which Wellington stormed the redoubt of Francisco, and broke ground on the first night of the investment; the more audacious manner in which he assaulted the place before the fire of the defence had been in any manner lessened, and before the counterscarp had been blown in; were the true causes of the sudden fall of the place. Both the military and political state of affairs warranted this neglect of rules. The final success depended more upon the courage of the troops than the skill of the engineer; and when the general terminated his order for the assault, with this sentence, “Ciudad Rodrigo _must_ be stormed this evening,” he knew well that it would be nobly understood. Yet the French fought bravely on the breach, and by their side many British deserters, desperate men, were bayonetted. 3º. The great breach was cut off from the town by a perpendicular descent of sixteen feet, and the bottom was planted with sharp spikes, and strewn with live shells; the houses behind were all loop-holed, and garnished with musketeers, and on the flanks there were cuts, not indeed very deep or wide and the French had left the temporary bridges over them, but behind were parapets so powerfully defended that it was said the third division could never have carried them, had not the light division taken the enemy in flank: an assertion perhaps easier made than proved. 4º. The rapid progress of the allies on this occasion, has been contrasted with the slow proceedings of Massena in 1810, and the defence of Herrasti has been compared with that of Barrié. But Massena was not pressed for time, and he would have been blameable to have spared labour at the expense of blood; Herrasti also had a garrison of six thousand men, whereas Barrié had less than two thousand, of which only seventeen hundred were able to bear arms, and he had additional works to guard. Nevertheless his neglect of the lesser breach was a great error; it was so narrow and high, that a very slight addition to its defences would have rendered it quite impracticable; and as the deserters told him in the morning of the 19th that the light division was come up, out of its turn, he must have expected the assault and had time to prepare for it. Moreover the small breach was flanked at a very short distance, by a demi-bastion with a parapet, which, though little injured, was abandoned when the head of the storming party had forced their way on to the rampart. But the true way of defending Ciudad was by external operations, and it was not until it fell, that the error of Marmont at Elbodon could be judged in its full extent. Neither can that marshal be in any manner justified for having left so few men in Ciudad Rodrigo; it is certain that with a garrison of five thousand the place would not have been taken, for when there are enough of men the engineer’s art cannot be overcome by mere courage. [Sidenote: Captain Cooke’s Memoirs, vol. i. p. 122.]