On the 17th the battery of the horn-work being renewed, the fire of the eighteen-pounders cleared away the enemy’s temporary defences at the breach, the howitzers damaged the rampart on each side, and a small mine was sprung on the extreme right of the lower parallel, with a view to take possession of a cavalier or mound which the French had raised there, and from which they had killed many men in the trenches; it was successful, and a lodgement was effected, but the enemy soon returned in force and obliged the besiegers to abandon it again. However on the 18th the new breach was rendered practicable, and Wellington ordered it to be stormed. The explosion of the mine under San Roman was to be the signal; that church was also to be assaulted; and at the same time a third detachment was to escalade the works in front of the ancient breach and thus connect the attacks. FIFTH ASSAULT. At half-past four o’clock the springing of the mine at San Roman broke down a terrace in front of that building, yet with little injury to the church itself; the latter was, however, resolutely attacked by colonel Browne, at the head of some Spanish and Portuguese troops, and though the enemy sprung a countermine which brought the building down, the assailants lodged themselves in the ruins. Meanwhile two hundred of the foot-guards, with strong supports, poured through the old breach in the first line, and escaladed the second line, beyond which in the open ground between the second and third lines, they were encountered by the French, and a sharp musketry fight commenced. At the same time a like number of the German legion, under major Wurmb, similarly supported, stormed the new breach, on the left of the guards, so vigourously, that it was carried in a moment, and some men, mounting the hill above, actually gained the third line. Unhappily at neither of these assaults did the supports follow closely, and the Germans being cramped on their left by the enemy’s stockade, extended by their right towards the guards, and at that critical moment Dubreton, who held his reserves well in hand, came dashing like a torrent from the upper ground, and in an instant cleared the breaches. Wurmb and many other brave men fell, and then the French, gathering round the guards, who were still unsupported, forced them beyond the outer line. More than two hundred men and officers were killed or wounded in this combat, and the next night the enemy recovered San Roman by a sally.