y, who faced about, and fled, without standing the first
encounter. But their foot repulsed the same body of horse in three
successive charges, with great order and resolution. While this was
transacting, the British general commanded the brigade of Pearce to
keep the enemy in diversion by a new attack. This was so well executed,
that the Portuguese infantry had time to retire in good order, and
repass the river. But that brigade, which rescued them, was itself
surrounded by the enemy, and Major-General Sarkey, Brigadier Pearce,
together with both their regiments, and that of the Lord Galway, lately
raised, were taken prisoners.

During the engagement, the Earl of Barrymore having advanced too far to
give some necessary order, was hemmed in by a squadron of the enemy; but
found means to gallop up to the brigade of Pearce, with which he remains
also a prisoner. My Lord Galway had his horse shot under him in this
action; and the Conde de St. Juan, a Portuguese general, was taken
prisoner. The same night the army encamped at Aronches, and on the 9th
moved to Elvas, where they lay when these despatches came away. Colonel
Stanwix's regiment is also taken. The whole of this affair has given the
Portuguese a great idea of the capacity and courage of my Lord Galway,
against whose advice they entered upon this unfortunate affair, and by
whose conduct they were rescued from it. The prodigious constancy and
resolution of that great man is hardly to be paralleled, who, under the
oppression of a maimed body, and the reflection of repeated ill fortune,
goes on with an unspeakable alacrity in the service of the common cause.
He has already put things in a very good posture after this ill
accident, and made the necessary dispositions for covering the country
from any further attempt of the enemy, who lie still in the camp they
were in before the battle.

Letters from Brussels, dated the 25th instant, advise, that
notwithstanding the negotiations of a peace seem so far advanced, that
some do confidently report the preliminaries of a treaty to be actually
agreed on; yet the Allies hasten their preparations for opening the
campaign; and the forces of the Empire, the Prussians, the Danes, the
Wirtembergers, the Palatines, and Saxon auxiliaries, are in motion
towards the general rendezvous, they being already arrived in the
neighbourhood of Brussels. These advices add, that the deputies of the
States of Holland having made a general review