the allotted time, a less regular but more compendious method was proposed. Badajoz stands on a tongue of land formed by the influx of a small stream called the Rivillas, into the large river Guadiana, the breadth of which is about five hundred yards. At the spot where the two streams meet is a rock about 120 feet high, on the top of which is an old castle, and from this rock "the town spreads out like a fan, as the land opens between the rivers." On the land side, where the town is not protected by the rivers and castle, it is secured by eight regular and well-built fronts. To attack one of these would have been the formal method of reducing the place; but as there was not sufficient time for such a mode of attack, it was resolved to direct the assault first against the fort of San Christoval, situated on a hill immediately opposite the castle, on the other side of the Guadiana. From this fort, once taken, the British could direct powerful batteries against the castle; and it being once carried, the town lying below it, and not separated in any way, could make no resistance. Such ideas being entertained, instructions in conformity with them were issued by Lord Wellington on the 23d of April 1811; and on the 4th of May the place was invested. The besieging corps consisted of a brigade of British, two battalions of Portuguese, and one of militia, amounting to about 4000 men in all.

With all this preparation, not a single step of any consequence was gained. From the 5th to the 13th of May the siege continued, the utmost exertions being used to obtain possession of San Christoval, on the capture of which all depended. From the night of the 8th till the 10th, the men laboured to erect a battery against the fort, exposed, in the meantime, to a heavy shower of musket-balls from the fort, and gunshot and shells from the town opposite. On the 10th, 400 of the British were killed repelling a sortie; and thus, says Colonel Napier, “five engineers and 700 officers and soldiers of the line were already on the long and bloody list of victims offered to this Moloch, and yet only one small battery against a small outwork was completed." Even this was of no use, for four or five of its guns were soon disabled by the fire from the fort, and many more of the besiegers killed. Ere a single advantage could be gained to compensate for such losses, intelligence was received that Marshal Soult was advancing, and a stop was put to all the operations; the first siege of Badajoz having thus turned out a total failure— a pool of misspent blood.

BATTLE OF ALBUERA, AND SECOND SIEGE OF BADAJOZ,

We have another melancholy instance of the waste of human life in the battle of Albuera, fought on the 16th of May 1811, between the British forces under Marshal Beresford and the French under Soult. Albuera is a village about twelve miles to the south-east of Badajoz. In this terrible battle the British

performed prodigies of-folly; bravery thrown away on a most worthless object. They succeeded in keeping their ground, but at an expense of 7000 men, while of the French 8000 perished. Fifteen thousand corpses lay scattered about in masses on one hill-side; and yet, according to the judgment of Colonel Napier, there was no necessity on the part of the British general for fighting the battle at all, inasmuch as it was risking nearly certain defeat for the sake of nothing. Sad satire upon war, when, owing to a general's incapacity, the poor dead fellows on the field of battle may have not even the consolation of knowing that they were obliged to be dead by unavoidable circumstances! Strange thought! that the hastiness of a general's temper, his deficiency in some particular faculty, or even a casual headache from having drunk too much wine, may be the cause of an unnecessary battle, and so of hurrying a few thousand men out of the world, who might have remained in it with perfect convenience even to the general himself!

A few days after the battle of Albuera, Badajoz was reinvested. Phillipon, the governor of the town, had employed the interval of repose in strengthening the works and taking in provisions. The besiegers commenced their operations on the 25th of May; and on the 2d of June batteries were completed against both the castle and San Christoval, twenty guns being pointed against the former, and twenty-three against the latter. The guns being for the most part of soft brass, and ill-constructed, many of them soon became unserviceable; yet, by assiduous firing, considerable damage was done both to the fort and the castle, although not without loss of men. An apparently practicable breach having been made in the fort, a storming party of 180 men, the forlorn-hope, led by a young lieutenant, advanced to attempt an entrance on the night between the 6th and 7th of June. The forlorn-hope reached the glacis about midnight without being perceived, jumped into the ditch, but found that, in consequence of the rubbish having been cleared away since dusk, they had still seven feet of perpendicular wall to climb, with carts, spikes, and jagged beams of wood placed above it to prevent ingress. Unable to overcome these obstacles, they were retiring, when the main body of the storming party came leaping into the ditch under a fire from the fort, bringing ladders fifteen feet long, with which to scale the walls at other points. The ladders, however, were too short; and after persevering for an hour amid shells, handgrenades, shot, stones, &c. poured down upon them by the garrison, the party were obliged to retire with the loss of 100 men. A second attack of a similar nature was made by a party of 200 men on the night between the 9th and 10th, which proved an equal failure. As the men jumped into the ditch with hurrahs, the French on the walls invited them with mock politeness to come on, seconding their invitation with barrels of gunpowder, shot, and shells. The ladders were now of

sufficient length; but as soon as they were planted, they were* overturned by the garrison, or those who mounted them were bayoneted on the top, and flung into the ditch. After 140 men had fallen, the party retired, and as Soult was again advancing, the siege was raised next day-the allies having lost in this second siege of Badajoz 400 men by "proceedings contrary to all rules."

SIEGE OF CIUDAD RODRIGO.

It having been considered necessary to capture Ciudad Rodrigo, a town built on a rising ground on the right bank of the Agueda, a tributary of the Douro, Wellington laid siege to it in January 1812. After the usual preliminary operations and precautions, the breaching batteries were opened against the walls of the town on the 14th of January, just as evening set in. Then," says Colonel Napier, was beheld a spectacle at once fearful and sublime. The enemy replied to the assailants' fire with more than fifty pieces; the bellowing of eighty large guns shook the ground far and wide; the smoke rested in heavy columns on the battlements of the place, or curled in light wreaths about the numerous spires; the shells, hissing through the air, seemed fiery serpents leaping from the darkness; the walls crashed to the stroke of the bullet; and the distant mountains, faintly returning the sound, seemed to moan over the falling city. And when night put an end to this turmoil, the quick clatter of musketry was heard like the pattering of rain after a peal of thunder." For five days the batteries continued to play; and on the 19th there were two breaches in the walls reported practicable. Accordingly, on that day the stern order was issued by Lord Wellington" Ciudad Rodrigo must be carried by assault this evening at seven o'clock." As few of our readers may be able to attach any but the most vague idea to this terrible word assault, we will attempt to give as precise a description of the assault of Ciudad Rodrigo as can be given by an untechnical person in untechnical language.

Conceive, then, a town built on a rising ground, and surrounded by two walls-the inner of old masonry, and about thirty feet high; the outer built farther down the slope of the hill, and not higher than twelve feet; affording, therefore, little cover to the other. Running along the base of this outer wall, or fausse braie, as it is called, is a ditch or excavation, about twelve feet deep, and thirty or forty yards wide, so that to cross it would require some time, especially in the face of a discharge of grape. The ditch being about twelve feet deep, and the fausse braie about twelve feet high, the total height of the fausse braie from the bottom of the ditch would be about twenty-four feet. Conceive an army of upwards of 30,000 men stationed round this town, among woods, and near convents and other suburban buildings outside the walls; not all lying in a mass

together, but a few thousand men here, and a few thousand men there, so as to face the town on all sides. Conceive further, that by the incessant firing of cannon-balls against two particular spots not far distant from each other on one side of the town, gaps have been made in both the walls, laying open two narrow rubbish-blocked ways into the heart of the town. To carry the town by assault, meant to force an entrance into it through either or both of these gaps, in spite of all that the besieged could do to prevent it. The plan laid down by Lord Wellington was as follows. At ten minutes before seven o'clock, a body of men, stationed on the opposite side of the river Agueda, which runs past one side of the town, were to cross a bridge, provided with six ladders twelve feet long. Marching up to a particular outwork or projecting fortification not far from the end of the bridge, and to which the ditch did not extend, they were to climb it by means of their ladders, overpower the artillerymen, and destroy two guns, which were so stationed as to command the point where the counterscarp (the side of the ditch nearest the open country) terminated against the main wall. This was the special duty of party No. 1. Exactly at the same time, however, another party were to advance from another direction, provided with twelve axes, and twelve scaling-ladders twenty-five feet long each. These were to march up to the point above referred to-the junction of the counterscarp, or outer side of the ditch with the main wall; and as it was supposed that ere this the two guns from which danger was to be apprehended would have been secured by the exertions of party No. 1, they would immediately cut down with their axes the gate opening into the ditch; then entering the ditch, they would scale the fausse braie by means of their ladders. Having mounted the fausse braie, they would turn to the left, and proceed along it, sweeping off all the enemy's posts intervening between them and the great breach. Such was the work prescribed for party No. 2. In the meantime, a third party, issuing from nearly the same quarter as the last, were to march up to a point of the ditch somewhat to the left of the former point, and nearer the great breach. They were to carry six ladders twelve feet long each, by which they were to descend into the ditch; and then they were to hasten along the ditch to the great breach, having ten axes to clear away palisades, or any other obstacles which might be in their way. Such was the part assigned to party No. 3. While these three parties were engaged in their several duties, a fourth party were to be doing their daring work on the great breach itself. There were to march up to the lip of the ditch, directly in front of the breach, 180 sappers, carrying bags of hay, which were to be thrown into the ditch to form a footing by which the fighting men might descend. As soon as the sappers, protected by a fire kept up against the besieged by a regiment stationed on purpose, had accomplished their task, the storming party of 500

men, who had advanced at the sappers' heels, were to jump upon the bags, gain the bottom of the ditch, dash across it, a forlornhope of some thirty men first, reach the gap in the fausse braie, fight, clamber, and struggle through the rubbish, scaling if necessary with their twelve-feet ladders, and cleaving obstacles with their axes. In the meantime a fifth party, issuing from a different quarter, were to perform a duty exactly analogous to that of party No. 3; with this difference, that instead of entering the ditch, as that party were to do, at a point on the right of the great breach, they were to enter it at a point about as far to the left, turning to the right when they were in the ditch, and clearing their way along it till they reached the great breach. Meanwhile, with all this tending of parties to the great breach, the smaller breach, which lay to the left of the great one, was not to remain unattacked. A sixth body of men, unconnected with the others, were to enter the ditch at a point near the small breach, to which they were to cut their way, storming first the gap in the fausse braie; after which they were to break up into two detachments, the one turning to the right, and scouring the fausse braie on from the smaller to the greater breach, thus performing a part exactly analogous to party No. 2, only on the other side of the great breach; the other, pushing on from the gap in the fausse braie to the gap in the inner wall, storming it also; then having entered the city, to turn to the right, so as to form a junction with the troops who ere this would have forced their entrance by the great breach. The forces having thus effected their entrance into the city, were to be left to their own discretion, or rather to the inspiration of their own fury, for their subsequent procedure; only they were to endeavour, as soon as possible, to open one of the gates of the city called the Gate of Salamanca.

Such, omitting the various arrangements adopted for the support of the parties mainly engaged by other parts of the army, was the order for the assault of Ciudad Rodrigo on the 19th of January 1812. The execution of the assault did not deviate from the order. The evening was calm and chill; and in the faint light of a first-quarter moon, the bastions of the town stood out, gaunt and black, over the gloomy ditch. Not a whisper was heard in the British trenches; but many a heart was beating quick. In the breast of many a youth who that morning had leaped at the thought of the coming glory, strange memories were now stirring; softening, not unmanning. Home, mothers, sisters, old firesides, the village school, the parish church, the river bank, the dear island far away! Down, down ye twining thoughts, and hark that signal! Tenderest hearts be now the maddest! Death or triumph! Up from the trenches start the men in waiting, and in the space in front of the ditch between the two breaches all is in motion. The garrison is roused; the rampart guns vomit their iron rage against the advancing crowd.

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