Two days passed before the allies could cross the river. On the 19th the passage was effected, and the French outposts on St. Michael were driven in. That night, the hornwork itself was carried after a sanguinary assault--the British losing in this short and murderous affair upwards of four hundred men. From the hill--now in possession of the allies--it was decided that the future operations should be carried on, and the engineers arranged that each line in succession should be taken by assault. The place, on a close examination, was ascertained to be in no respect formidable; but the means to effect its reduction, by comparison, were feebler still. Nothing, indeed, could be less efficient--three long 18-pounders, and five 24-pound howitzers, formed the entire siege artillery that Lord Wellington could obtain. The head-quarters were fixed at Villa Toro. The engineering department intrusted to Colonel Burgoyne, and the charge of the artillery to colonels Robe and Dickson. The second assault, that upon the exterior wall, was made on the night of the 22nd by escalade. Major Laurie of the 79th, with detachments from the different regiments before the place, formed the storming party. The Portuguese, who led the attack, were quickly repulsed--and though the British entered the ditch, they never could mount a ladder. Those who attempted it were bayoneted from above--while shells, combustibles, and cold shot were hurled on the assailants, who, after a most determined effort for a quarter of an hour, were driven from the ditch, leaving their leader, and half the number who composed the storming party, killed and wounded.[204] After this disastrous failure, an unsuccessful attempt to breach the wall was tried--in effecting which, of the few guns in battery, two were totally disabled by the commanding fire of the castle--and the engineers resorted, from sheer necessity, to sap and mine. The former, from the plunging fire kept up from the enemy’s defences, and which occasioned a fearful loss, was speedily abandoned; but the latter was carried vigorously on--and the outward wall mined, charged,[205] and on the 29th, exploded. At twelve o’clock at night the hose was fired--the storming party having previously formed in a hollow way some fifty paces from the gallery. When the mine was sprung, a portion of the wall came down, and a sergeant and four privates, who formed the forlorn hope, rushed through the smoke, mounted the ruins, and bravely crowned the breach. But in the darkness, which was intense, the storming party and their supporting companies, missed their way--and the French recovering from their surprise, rushed to the breach, and drove the few brave men who held it back to the trenches. The attack, consequently, failed, and from a scarcity of shot no fire could be turned on the ruins. Dubreton availed himself of this accidental advantage--and by daylight, the breach was rendered impracticable again.