orps of observation upon Massena's movements.

The position he occupied was a most commanding one,--the crown of a long
mountain ridge, studded with pine-copse and cork-trees, presenting every
facility for light-infantry movements; and here and there gently sloping
towards the plain, offering a field for cavalry manoeuvres. Beneath, in
the vast plain, were encamped the dark legions of France, their heavy
siege-artillery planted against the doomed fortress, while clouds of their
cavalry caracoled proudly before us, as if in taunting sarcasm at our
inactivity.

Every artifice which his natural cunning could suggest, every taunt a
Frenchman's vocabulary contains, had been used by Massena to induce Sir
Arthur Wellesley to come to the assistance of the beleagured fortress:
but in vain. In vain he relaxed the energy of the siege, and affected
carelessness. In vain he asserted that the English were either afraid or
else traitors to their allies. The mind of him he thus assailed was neither
accessible to menace nor to sarcasm. Patiently abiding his time, he watched
the progress of events, and provided for that future which was to crown his
country's arms with success and himself with undying glory.

Of a far different mettle was the general formed under whose orders we were
now placed. Hot, passionate, and impetuous, relying upon bold and headlong
heroism rather than upon cool judgment and well-matured plans, Crawfurd
felt in war all the asperity and bitterness of a personal conflict. Ill
brooking the insulting tone of the wily Frenchman, he thirsted for any
occasion of a battle, and his proud spirit chafed against the colder
counsels of his superior.

On the very morning we joined, the pickets brought in the intelligence that
the French patrols were nightly in the habit of visiting the villages at
the outposts and committing every species of cruel indignity upon the
wretched inhabitants. Fired at this daring insult, our general resolved to
cut them off, and formed two ambuscades for the purpose.

Six squadrons of the 14th were despatched to Villa del Puerco, three of
the 16th to Baguetto, while some companies of the 95th, and the cacadores,
supported by artillery, were ordered to hold themselves in reserve, for the
enemy were in force at no great distance from us.

The morning was just breaking as an aide-de-camp galloped up with the
intelligence that the French had been seen near the Villa del Puerco, a
body of infantry