Before daylight, Reille, with eighteen thousand men, forded the river near Behobia, and attacked the Spanish force posted about San Marcial. Wellington himself arrived on the scene at the critical moment, and so inspired were the Spaniards by his presence and exhortations that they fought with the greatest valour, and succeeded in repulsing the attack--even to driving the French into the river. While this was in progress, Clausel, with twenty thousand Frenchmen, crossed by the fords near Vera and assailed the slopes of the Peña de Haya, held by the 9th Portuguese Brigade, supported by General Inglis's brigade, with which was the 51st, now commanded by Colonel Mitchell. Here the French were too strong for the defenders, who, resisting gallantly, were forced back up the slopes until they reached the 4th Division, at the foundry of San Antonio. The fight which ensued was long and bickering, and it was not until two in the afternoon that Clausel's skirmishers reached San Antonio. Meanwhile Wellington directed a portion of the Light Division from Santa Barbara across the Upper Bidassoa, to move by the Lesaca bridge, and, taking some Spanish troops with them, to reinforce Inglis. Clausel observing these movements, and fearing for the safety of his left flank and rear, halted his force and sent to Soult for orders. The 51st lost heavily in its retirement up the slopes to San Antonio, having one officer killed and eleven officers wounded, and upwards of seventy men killed or wounded. Nor was it possible for the regiment, when forced back out of San Antonio, to take all their wounded with them, and in connection with this the following appears in the records of the 51st: "Some of the wounded had to be left behind, and they, falling into the hands of the French, discovered that the regiment with which they had been engaged was the French 51st. Pointing to the common number, the English soldiers were then received by their captors rather as distressed comrades than prisoners. Their wants were immediately attended to, their wounds dressed, and every article of their personal property carefully preserved for them. In the morning the French commenced their retreat, and left their grateful prisoners to be reclaimed by their regiment, which listened with joy to the universal story of the kindness they had experienced. 'This is the real chivalry of modern warfare, and robs it of half its horrors.'" At the time probably neither regiment knew, or remembered, that just a year before they had been in conflict at the Retiro, in Madrid, when the eagle of the French 51st had been captured. But this meeting of the British 51st with the French 51st is not without parallel in the annals of the Peninsular War, for there are other instances of the freemasonry of regimental numbers. In the 'Historical Records of the 43rd Light Infantry,' the following incident is related: "In the evening (December 12, 1813), on calling the roll of the regiment, a