At last the signal was given, and the leading Riflemen issued from behind the Convent of San Francisco and turned to the left to ascend the glacis. The night was clear enough to enable the defenders to perceive them; and no sooner had the head of the column appeared, than a furious fire of shot, shell and musketry lit up the ramparts in a sheet of flame, while fire-balls enabled the enemy to direct their aim on the advancing columns. Cameron’s Riflemen extended along the glacis, and opened their fire. The stormers rushed up to the ditch, and without waiting for the hay-bags or ladders carried by the Portuguese, who were nowhere, leaped into the ditch, a descent of ten or twelve feet, and made for the breach. Kincaid, by mistake, turned to a ravelin which he fancied to be a bastion, and finding one angle of it a good deal battered, thought it was the breach, and mounted it; but soon perceiving his error, was about to return, when a shout from the other side of the ditch announced that the breach had been found. He dropped from the ravelin, and on coming to the breach found the head of the storming party just ascending it. But not the stormers only: the rest of the Regiment were pouring into the ditch. George Simmons finding ladders reared against the _fausse-braye_ (for the Portuguese by this time had found their way to the ditch) mounted it with many others, fancying it to be the breach; but discovering his mistake, slid down the other side and mounted the breach. As he was ascending the ladders, Uniacke of the 1st Battalion accosted him. ‘This is the way.’ ‘Impossible,’ replied Simmons, ‘here are the ladders.’ Uniacke left him, turned to the left, and just as he reached the rampart an expense magazine exploded, and blew him and many others up.[109] Then was there furious fighting at this breach; but it was soon won. The men, true to Craufurd’s orders, cleared the ramparts, and within an hour the place was in our hands. Then began that furious tumult, and that loosening of all the bands of discipline which mark the sack of a place captured by assault. The town was set on fire, but by the exertions of Barnard, Cameron and others it was extinguished. Barnard and Cameron with some of their officers seized broken gun-barrels, of which many French ones were found, and by force and even blows compelled the men to refrain from brutality and madness. By one o’clock in the morning Barnard had got the Regiment together and formed them on the ramparts, where, kindling fires, they lay down and slept soundly after this din of arms.