But the English did not sleep tranquilly either. In the first hours of the morning of the 25th of May {60} Don Garcia Bravo, with 500 Spanish troops from Oporto, arrived in Lisbon. They were hungry, ragged, and weary, but they were eager to meet the foe, and barely gave themselves time to snatch a hurried meal before sallying from the gate of San Anton and up the hill to the quarters of Colonel Brett in the farm of Andres Soares. Another force at the same time came from the gate of Santa Catalina and forced Brett's trenches from that side. The long rows of windows of the monastery of San Roque on the hill were lined by Spanish musketeers, who kept up a deadly fire on the English, whilst two of the great guns of the castle were brought to bear upon one exposed side of the invaders' camp. The attack was made before dawn, and Brett had hardly time to muster his men in the darkness and confusion, when a cannon-shot from the walls laid him low. Captain Carsey and Captain Carr were mortally wounded, and 200 other officers and men slain. The rest of the English forces were aroused, and came to the rescue under Colonel Lane and Colonel Medkirk, and "put them to a sodain fowle retreate, insomuch as the Earle of Essex had the chase of them even to the gates of the High towne, wherein they left behind them many of their best commanders." A body of Spanish horse, sallying from the gates of San Anton to support their comrades, met the latter in full retreat in a narrow lane, and unwillingly trampled them down; thus adding to the confusion, which was completed by a flank charge upon the struggling mass by Yorke's cavalry. The English chronicler claims that the Spanish loss tripled ours, but my diarists say that they had only twenty-five killed and forty wounded, and the {61} Portuguese tries to account for the heavy loss of wounded by accusing the English of using poisoned bullets. The next day the English tried to get in through the monastery, but they found the city forewarned and on the alert, although the monks had done their best for them. The day after they bribed a Portuguese captain in charge of the wall at the nearest point to the river to let them pass round at low tide, but the spies told the Archduke, and the English found their ally replaced by a Spaniard with a strong force, who sent them flying back again. And so three days passed in constant skirmishes, whilst Norris was chafing and helpless without. The fatal mistake he had made in leaving the fleet was now apparent. The time, too, they had lost at Corunna was irreparable. Fernando de Toledo was approaching with relief, and the first dismay in Spain had now given way to desperate energy. The loss of men in the English camp from sickness and wounds was terrible, supplies and munitions were desperately short, there was no medical aid or transport for the sick and disabled, whilst the Portuguese in Lisbon, from whom everything had been hoped, still made no sign.