But while Wellington prepared for a battle, he also looked to a retreat. His sick were sent to the rear, small convoys of provisions were ordered up from Ciudad Rodrigo to certain halting places between that place and Salamanca; the overplus of ammunition in the latter town was destroyed daily by small explosions, and large stores of clothing, of arms and accoutrements, were delivered to the Spanish troops, who were thus completely furnished; one hour after the English general had the mortification to see them selling their equipments even under his own windows. Indeed Salamanca presented an extraordinary scene, and the Spaniards, civil and military, began to evince hatred of the British. Daily did they attempt or perpetrate murder, and one act of peculiar atrocity merits notice. A horse, led by an English soldier, being frightened, backed against a Spanish officer commanding at a gate, he caused the soldier to be dragged into his guard-house and there bayonetted him in cold blood, and no redress could be had for this or other crimes, save by counter-violence, which was not long withheld. A Spanish officer while wantonly stabbing at a rifleman was shot dead by the latter; and a British volunteer slew a Spanish officer at the head of his own regiment in a sword-fight, the troops of both nations looking on, but here there was nothing dishonourable on either side. The civil authorities, not less savage, were more insolent than the military, treating every English person with an intolerable arrogance. Even the prince of Orange was like to have lost his life; for upon remonstrating about quarters with the sitting junta, they ordered one of their guards to kill him; and he would have been killed had not Mr. Steele of the forty-third, a bold athletic person, felled the man before he could stab; yet both the prince and his defender were obliged to fly instantly to avoid the soldier’s comrades. The exasperation caused by these things was leading to serious mischief when the enemy’s movements gave another direction to the soldiers’ passions. On the 9th Long’s cavalry had been driven in upon Alba, and on the 10th Soult opened a concentrated fire of eighteen guns against that place. The castle, which crowned a bare and rocky knoll, had been hastily entrenched, and furnished scarcely any shelter from this tempest; for two hours the garrison could only reply with musketry, but finally it was aided by the fire of four pieces from the left bank of the river, and the post was defended until dark, with such vigour that the enemy dared not venture on an assault. During the night general Hamilton reinforced the garrison, repaired the damaged walls, and formed barricades, but the next morning after a short cannonade, and some musketry firing the enemy withdrew. This combat cost the allies above a hundred men.