In my work it is said that the allies resisted vigorously, yet the French gained the summit of the ridge, and while the leading battalions established themselves on the crowning rocks, others wheeled to their right, intending to sweep the summit of the Sierra, but were driven down again in a desperate charge made by the left of the third division. Picton’s letter says, that the head of the enemy’s column got possession of a rocky point on the crest of the position, and that they were followed by the remainder of a large column which was driven down in a desperate charge made by the left of the third division. So far we are agreed. But Picton gives the merit of the charge to the light companies of the seventy-fourth and eighty-eighth regiments, and a wing of the forty-fifth aided by _the eighth Portuguese regiment, under major Birmingham_, whereas, in the History the whole merit is given to the eighty-eighth and forty-fifth regiments. Lord Wellington’s despatch gives the merit to the forty-fifth, and eighty-eighth, aided by the eighth Portuguese regiment, _under colonel Douglas_. The “_Reminiscences of a Subaltern_,” written by an officer of the eighty-eighth regiment, and published in the United Service Journal, in like manner, gives the merit to the eighty-eighth and forty-fifth British regiments, and the _eighth Portuguese_. It will presently be seen why I took no notice of the share the eighth Portuguese are said to have had in this brilliant achievement. Meanwhile the reader will observe that Picton’s letter indicates the _centre_ of his division as being forced by the French, and he affirms that he drove them down again with his _left_ wing without aid from the fifth division. But my statement makes both the _right_ and _centre_ of his division to be forced, and gives the fifth division, and especially colonel Cameron and the ninth British regiment, a very large share in the glory, moreover I say that the _eighth Portuguese was broken to pieces_. Mr. Robinson argues that this must be wrong, for, says he, the eighth Portuguese _were not broken_, and if the right of the third division had been forced, the French would have encountered the fifth division. To this he adds, with a confidence singularly rash, his scanty knowledge of facts considered, that colonel Cameron and the ninth regiment would doubtless have made as good a charge as I have described, “_only they were not there_.”