The tide of grey-coats rushing onward, captured the British guns, and although the batteries on the railway embankment still held out, and the enemy suffered heavily from their Maxims, yet they pressed on into Stretford town, and commenced to sack it. Messrs. Williams, Deacon's Bank, was entered, the safes blown open, and large sums in gold and notes abstracted, shops were entered and looted, and houses ransacked for jewellery. Thus Stretford fell. Its streets ran with blood; and on, over the bodies of its brave defenders, the hordes of the Great White Tsar marched towards Manchester. Meanwhile the British batteries on the railway embankment had also fallen into the hands of the Russians, who were now driving the survivors over towards Barton. They did not, however, retreat without a most desperate resistance. A row of thatched and white-washed cottages at the bend of the road they held for a long time, emptying their magazine rifles with deadly effect upon their pursuers, but at last they were driven north, and half an hour later joined their comrades who had massed at Barton, but who had been attacked in great force and fallen back in good order to Pendleton. By this time the enemy, having pierced the line of outposts, had occupied Barton and Eccles. At the former place they had set on fire a number of factories, and out of mere desire to cause as much damage to property as possible, they had blown up both the bridge that carried the road over the Ship Canal, and also destroyed the magnificent swinging aqueduct which carried the Bridgewater Canal over the other. This great triumph of engineering--one of the most successful feats of the decade--was blown into the air by charges of gun-cotton, and now lay across the Ship Canal a heap of fallen masonry and twisted iron cantilevers, while the water from the Bridgewater Canal was pouring out in thousands of tons, threatening to flood the surrounding district, and the church opposite had been wrecked by the terrific force of the explosion. A frightful panic had been caused in Manchester by these reverses. The scenes in the streets were indescribable. At the barricades, however, the enemy met with a desperate resistance.