The assault of Ciudad Rodrigo took place on the 19th January, 1812. The success was the result of desperate valour, time not permitting the regular approaches of scientific skill, as it was hourly expected that Marmont would arrive to succour the town. “Wellington resolved to storm the place without blowing in the counterscarp; in other words, to overstep the rules of science, and sacrifice life rather than time, for such was the capricious nature of the Agueda that in one night a flood might enable a small French force to relieve the place.” (Napier, _Hist. War in the Penins._ book xvi. chap. 3.) “The storming party went straight to the breach, which was so contracted that a gun placed lengthwise across the top nearly blocked up the opening. * * 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, * * were the true causes of the sudden fall of the place. * * 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.” (_Ibid._) The vital contest lasted only a few minutes, but cost the gallant Crawfurd’s life. “Throwing off the restraints of discipline, the troops committed frightful excesses. The town was fired in three or four places, the soldiers menaced their officers, and shot each other; many were killed in the market-place, intoxication soon increased the tumult, disorder everywhere prevailed, and at last, the fury rising to an absolute madness, a fire was wilfully lighted in the middle of the great magazine, when the town and all in it would have been blown to atoms, but for the energetic courage of some officers and a few soldiers who still preserved their senses.” (_Ibid._) It is fit that the glories of War should have hung up by their side this pendent picture of its Hellish atrocities and horrors. The “frightful excesses” are here but imperfectly detailed. Neither age nor sex was spared from any description of outrage; and it was against the Spanish people unarmed, helpless, and allies, that these villanies of unbridled passion were committed. Warlike ambition contains within it the germs of every crime; and War itself, unless purely defensive and inevitable, is the concentration of all malignity.