In the night of the 17th, eighteen hundred men, protected by a guard of two thousand, broke ground one hundred and sixty yards from the Picurina. A tempest stifled the sound of their pickaxes, and though the work was commenced late, a communication, four thousand feet in length, was formed, and a parallel of six hundred yards three feet deep, and three feet six inches wide, was opened. However, when the day broke the Picurina was reinforced, and a sharp musketry interspersed with discharges from some field-pieces, aided by heavy guns from the body of the place, was directed on the trenches. In the night of the 18th two batteries were traced out, the parallel was prolonged both on the right and left, and the previous works were improved. On the other hand the garrison raised the parapets of the Picurina, and having lined the top of the covered way with sand-bags, planted musketeers there, to gall the men in the trenches, who replied in a like manner. The 19th lord Wellington having secret intelligence that a sally was intended, ordered the guards to be reinforced. Nevertheless, at one o’clock some cavalry came out by the Talavera gate, and thirteen hundred infantry under general Vielland, the second in command, filed unobserved into the communication between the Picurina and the San Roque; a hundred men were prepared to sally from the Picurina itself, and all these troops jumping out at once, drove the workmen before them, and began to demolish the parallel. Previous to this outbreak, the French cavalry forming two parties had commenced a sham fight on the right of the parallel, and the smaller party pretending to fly, and answering Portuguese, to the challenge of the picquets, were allowed to pass. Elated by the success of their stratagem, they then galloped to the engineer’s parc, which was a thousand yards in rear of the trenches, and there cut down some men, not many, for succour soon came, and meanwhile the troops at the parallel having rallied upon the relief which had just arrived, beat the enemy’s infantry back even to the castle. In this hot fight the besieged lost above three hundred men and officers, the besiegers only one hundred and fifty; but colonel Fletcher, the chief engineer, was badly wounded, and several hundred entrenching tools were carried off, for Phillipon had promised a high price for each; yet this turned out ill, because the soldiers, instead of pursuing briskly, dispersed to gather the tools. After the action a squadron of dragoons and six field-pieces were placed as a reserve-guard behind St. Michael, and a signal post was established on the Sierra de Venta to give notice of the enemy’s motions. The weather continued wet and boisterous, and the labour of the works was very harassing, but in the night of the 19th the parallel was opened in its whole length, and the 20th it was enlarged; yet a local obstacle and the flooding of the trenches, rendered the progress slow.