While we were pursuing our opponents, the 20th Light Dragoons, led on by Colonel Taylor, galloped furiously past us, in order to put a finishing stroke to the business, by completing any thing that the infantry might have left undone. The horsemen, unsupported, charging the enemy with impetuosity, and rashly going too far, were involved in a difficulty of which, in their eagerness to overtake the stragglers, they had never thought; for, getting entangled among the trees and vineyards, they could do but little service, and suffered a loss of nearly half their number: their brave commander being also one of those who fell in that desperate onset. The 43rd regiment was very much cut up, being, while employed in skirmishing, considerably exposed. I noticed at least a subdivision of their men lying killed in a deep gulley or trench, as they fell over each other, from a raking discharge of round or grape shot. The 50th lost a great proportion of rank and file, which chiefly arose from the fire of the French light troops, while covering their column, and during their retreat. Major Charles Hill was wounded, and Captain A. G. Coote and Lieutenant I. N. Wilson were among the slain. Upon the bleak surface of the hill, from which the regiment had charged Laborde, we bivouacked that night, and reposed our weary limbs. Although the air was cold, and our situation comfortless, yet, from extreme fatigue, we rested perhaps more soundly than the pampered alderman on his downy couch. A windmill on the summit afforded excellent quarters for the Colonel and his personal staff, while the other officers, less fortunate, crouched together, shivering outside its base. The 50th took a standard pole and box, which were borne by a serjeant between the colours, as a trophy, during the succeeding campaigns. The French, instead of colours, display a small brass eagle, screwed to a square box of the same metal, both of which are attached to a pole or staff. This eagle is seldom exhibited in the heat of action, the staff being carried as a rallying point, in the same way, and for the same object as our banners. The army remained on its ground during the 22nd, no measures being taken to follow up the victory that was gained. This inaction arose from Sir Harry Burrard having arrived on the field before the termination of the battle, _assumed_ the command, and given orders that no further hostile movement should take place. An armistice was now concluded, and the French troops withdrew into Lisbon, where they lay encamped in one of the principal squares. Here they remained, by virtue of the convention of Cintra, until their final embarkation for France, accompanied by their renowned chieftain the celebrated Duke of Abrantes, and bearing away plunder enough to load a ship, and their arms to meet us at some future day, on some other battle-field.[10]