river, and formed a tête-de-pont. This post was attacked on the nights of the 3d and 4th, with vigour by the enemy; and though he was eventually repulsed, the loss was very considerable on the part of our ally. As the weather, from the earliest preparation for the expedition, had been such as to prevent the possibility of landing on the coast, or bay even without great risk, and with no prospect of being able to re-embark, should such a measure become necessary, the apprehension of having a force, which, with such prospects, I could scarcely expect actively to employ, when its services might be positively useful elsewhere, in defending the tête-de-pont, or in opening a communication with the army from La-Isla-de-Leon, induced me to state my sentiments on the subject, and the regiment of Toledo was in consequence disembarked. The sea on the coast having considerably impeded our communications, we were still uncertain whether the advance of the army would be by Medina or Conil, and of its precise situation, until the 5th, when at 11 a.m. I was informed by telegraph from La-Isla, that it was seen advancing from the southward near the coast. But though the Implacable and Standard weighed, to engage Catalina, the pilots refused to take them to their appointed stations; and, in the opinion of the best informed, the weather was of too threatening a cast to venture a landing, which, as the army was engaged by noon, according to the telegraph, would not have favored its operations. Under such circumstances, our measures were necessarily confined to feints; whilst the British troops, led by their gallant and able commander, forgetting on the sight of the enemy their own fatigue and privations, and regardless of the enemy’s advantage in numbers and situation, gained by their determined valour, though not without considerable loss, a victory uneclipsed by any of the brave achievements of the British armies.”
We need scarcely add, that the victory thus announced was that of Barrosa, achieved by a mere handful of British and Portuguese troops, over two divisions of the French army, commanded by Marshal Victor in person.
The woody ridge of Barrosa is about three or four miles from the southern outlet of the Sancti-Petri, and was unexpectedly found occupied by a force of more than eight thousand men. In this emergency, to secure a road to the bridge, Lieutenant-General Graham resolved to charge up the heights, although his troops had been toiling for sixteen hours through a heavy sandy tract of country. British valour carried the day; and, but for the exhausted state of the heroic band, the victory would have been still more signal. The enemy’s loss in killed and wounded amounted to nearly 3,000 officers
