Nothing could check the fusileers; they kept gradually advancing, while the incessant rolling of their musketry slaughtered the crowded sections of the French, and each moment embarrassed more and more Soult’s efforts to open out his encumbered line. The reserve, coming to support their comrades--now forced to the very edge of the plateau-- increased the crowd without remedying the disorder. The English volleys rolled on faster and more deadly than ever; a horrid carnage made all attempts to hold the hill vain--and uselessly increased an unavailing slaughter. Unable to bear the withering fire, the shattered columns of the French were no longer able to sustain themselves,--the mass were driven over the ridge,--and trampling each other down, the shattered column sought refuge at the bottom of the hill. On that bloody height stood the conquerors. From fifteen hundred muskets a parting volley fell upon the routed column as it hurried down the Sierra. Where was the remainder of the proud army of England, that on the morning had exceeded six thousand combatants?--Stretched coldly in the sleep of death, or bleeding on the battle-ground! During the time this desperate effort of the fusileer brigade had been in progress, Beresford, to assist Hardinge, moved Blake’s first line on Albuera--and with the German light troops, and two Portuguese divisions, advanced to support the 7th and 23rd, while Lautour Maubourg’s flank attack was repelled by the fire of Lefebre’s guns, and a threatened charge by Lumley. But the fusileers had driven the French over the heights before any assistance reached them--and Beresford was enabled to form a fresh line upon the hill, parallel to that by which Soult had made his attack in the morning. For a short time the battle continued at Albuera--but the French finally withdrew from the village, and at three o’clock in the evening, the firing had totally ceased. There is not on record a bloodier struggle. In four hours’ fighting, fifteen thousand men were _hors de combat_. The allied loss was frightful; it amounted to nearly seven thousand in killed, wounded, and missing. Almost all its general officers were included in the melancholy list: Houghton, Myers, and Duckworth in the killed; and Cole, Stewart, Ellis, Blakeney, and Hawkshaw among the wounded. The loss of some regiments was terrible; the 57th came into action with five hundred and seventy bayonets--and at the close it had lost its colonel (Inglis), twenty-two officers, and four hundred rank and file. The proportion of the allied casualties told how fatal Albuera had proved to the British: two thousand Spaniards, and six hundred German and Portuguese, were returned as their killed and wounded, leaving the remainder to be completed from the British regiments. Hence, the unexampled loss of more than four thousand men, out of a corps little exceeding six, was sustained in this sanguinary battle by the British.