Having thus cleared his way, Liniers was enabled to bring up his artillery and to pour small shot into the English as they were packed round the fort. It was then that Captain Kennet of the Engineers, General Beresford’s secretary, fell at the side of his chief. The noise of the firing and the cries of some fifteen thousand men who took part in the struggle were so deafening as to prevent the orders of the officers from being heard; and Beresford perceived that it was necessary to retreat within the fort, which he was the last of his force to enter. A well-sustained fusillade proved fatal to all such as showed themselves above the ramparts, which in addition were commanded by the flat roofs of the houses, whose inmates might fire in perfect safety on the devoted English. Thus, seeing resistance useless, Beresford ordered a flag of truce to be hoisted; but this signal not being understood or regarded by the assailants, and the fire continuing, the Spanish flag was raised and the future victor of Albuera, showing himself upon the rampart, flung his sword into the ditch, whereupon the firing ceased. Liniers readily granted his brave adversary all the honours of war. An hour later the English general and his staff, together with the 71st regiment, whose colours bore the names of various actions in the United States and also of _Saint Jean d’Acre_, had to lay down their arms and standards before the raw forces of the Gascon, by which they were marched in line, and whose prisoners of war they remained. The English occupation of _Buenos Ayres_ had lasted forty-seven days. Its abrupt termination was chiefly due to the utter absence of any intelligence-department in the occupying force. It is difficult to attach blame to General Beresford in this or indeed in any other respect. He had, in obedience to superior orders, undertaken an enterprise for which the force at his disposal was utterly inadequate, and so rapid were the movements of Liniers that he could not possibly anticipate his coming at the head of an expedition capable of opposing him. Even had he anticipated his arrival it is not easy to see what he could have done, quartered as he was in a little fort commanded on three sides by the houses of a hostile town, which had so well disguised its hostility as to afford him no pretext for treating it in an unfriendly manner. Had he adopted the alternative course of destroying all the houses whose vicinity to the fort endangered his position, he would have, doubtless, raised the population against him, and would have found it impossible to obtain provisions for his troops. As it was, he saw the insecurity of his position and had demanded succours from the Cape of Good Hope; but the intelligence and activity of Liniers anticipated their arrival.