He directed the light and seventh divisions, supported by the cavalry, to retire and to take up the ground extending from the Duas Casas towards Frenada, on the Coa. This movement, as bold as it was decisive, was executed with the greatest precision; the enemy could make no impression on the allied columns while on their march, and the new position, at right angles with the old one, was taken up with perfect regularity. Massena declined making any attempt on the troops now formed on their new alignement; he confined his efforts for the remainder of the day to successive attacks, made by the sixth corps, upon Fuentes d’Honor; the contest was most severe in this quarter, and lasted till night, when, with great loss on both sides, the allied troops, having completely repulsed the enemy, retained possession of this most obstinately disputed village. So terminated this memorable action, the only one throughout the whole war in which the enemy had to boast of a momentary success against the allies; the ground at Porco Velho, from which the advance of the seventh division was obliged to retire, afforded no decisive position, and if the French infantry had been attacking at the moment of the charge of cavalry under General Montbrun, our loss in the retreat to the new alignement might have been considerably greater. Not such, however, as the French officers assert; the novelty of an advantage to them was so great, that on our change of position they predicted the entire destruction of the allied army; and although these hopes were so blasted, that they dared not afterwards make a single movement in attack upon us, yet they still persuaded themselves, that if the proper moment had been seized, we were in total confusion, and must inevitably have been defeated. The British army can seldom be calculated upon to verify such predictions; if the French had attempted to pursue, they would, as on other occasions of the same nature, have had more to repent than to boast of[4]. The message of General Foy to Buonaparte, before the action of Waterloo, “that in the whole war in the Peninsula, the French had never once beaten the British infantry,” would have been as true in its application to any attack made at the moment above alluded to, as it proved to be in the tremendous battle of Mont Saint Jean. Footnote 4: See Book the 5th, Chapter 1st of Sir Walter Raleigh’s _History of the World_, “where, in deciding this controversie, whether the Macedonian or the Roman were the best warriors,” he answers, “the Englishman,” and quotes the French historian, who says, “The English comes with a conquering bravery, as he that was accustomed to gain every where without any stay.”