It has been observed by an acute military writer, that the talents of Lord Wellington rose with his difficulties; and notwithstanding the serious impediments which obstructed the measure, he resolved to subdue the important fortress of Badajos. He accordingly proceeded to Elvas, which he reached on the 11th of March, and arrangements were immediately commenced for the formal investment of the place. Badajos is a regularly fortified town. The garrison, composed of French, Hessian, and Spanish troops, was now near five thousand strong. Phillipon, the governor, had greatly improved the defences of the place. A second ditch had been dug at the bottom of the great one, which was also in some parts filled with water. The gorge of the Pardaleras was inclosed, and that outwork was connected with the body of the place, from whence powerful batteries looked into it. The three western fronts were mined; and on the east, the arch of the bridge behind the San Roque was built up to form an inundation two hundred yards wide, which greatly contracted the space by which the place could be approached by troops; and all the 163inhabitants had been compelled, on pain of being sent away, to lay up food for three months. The plan fixed upon by the besiegers was, to attack the bastion of Trinidad, because the counter-guard there being unfinished the bastion could be battered from the hill on which Picurina stood. Of nine hundred gunners present, three hundred were British, the rest Portuguese; and there were one hundred and fifty sappers, volunteers from the third division. In the night of the 17th eighteen hundred men broke ground one hundred and sixty yards from the Picurina. A tempest, which happened to arise, stifled the sound of their pickaxes; and though the work was commenced late, a communication four thousand feet in length was formed, and a parallel of six hundred yards, three feet deep and three feet six inches wide, was opened. However, when the day broke, the Picurina was reinforced; and a sharp musketry, interspersed with discharges from some field-pieces, aided by heavy guns from the body of the place, was directed on the trenches. On the 19th Lord Wellington, having secret intelligence that a sally was intended, ordered the guards to be reinforced. Nevertheless, at one o’clock, some cavalry came out by the Talavera gate; and thirteen hundred infantry, under the command of General Vielland, filed unobserved into the communication between the Picurina and the San Roque. These troops jumping out, at once drove the workmen before them, and began to demolish the parallel. Previous to this outbreak the French cavalry, forming two parties, had commenced a sham-fight on the right of the parallel; and the smaller party pretending to fly, and answering Portuguese to the challenge of the piquets, were allowed to pass. Elated by the success of their stratagem, they then galloped to the engineer’s park, which was a thousand yards