64The plot now rapidly thickened. Hemmed in by the gathering forces of the numerous French corps, whose advance had been hastened by prodigious sacrifices, both of men and means, the handful of British troops, thinned by recent losses, and worn down by the length of a harassed and contested march, were now cooped within the surface of a few square miles. Negotiation with the enemy, having for its object the permissive embarkation of the army, had been intimated to the commander by some of the officers as a prudent step, under the continued and increasing difficulties of the army, but was properly rejected, with that high spirit and clear judgment which was safely founded on an intimate knowledge of the army he commanded, and the resistance it could offer, even in its dangerous and unfavourable position. The enemy having collected in force on the Mero, it became necessary to choose a position of battle. A chain of rocky elevations, commencing on the sea-coast, and ending on the Mero, just behind the village of El Burgo, offered an advantageous line of defence; but this ridge was too extensive for the British army, and, if not wholly occupied, the French might have turned it by the right, and moved along a succession of eminences to the gates of Corunna. There was no alternative but to take post on an inferior range, enclosed, as it were, within the other, and completely commanded by it within cannon-shot. The French army had been so exhausted by toil, that it was not completely assembled on the Mero before the 12th. The same evening the expected transports from Vigo hove in sight, and soon after entered the harbour of Corunna; and the dismounted cavalry, the sick, all the best of the horses, and fifty-two pieces of artillery were embarked during the night; eight British and four Spanish guns were, however, retained on shore, ready for action. Towards evening on the 15th, the English piquets opposite the right of the French got engaged, and being galled by the fire of two 65guns, Colonel M’Kenzie, of the 5th, at the head of some companies, endeavoured to seize the battery, when a line of infantry, hitherto concealed by some stone walls, arose, and poured in such a fire of musketry, that the colonel was killed, and his men forced back with loss.