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 98 MEMOIR OF COLONEL TUPPER.

between the constitutional army and Talca. In this manner its return to the town was completely cut off, and it had to fight in an extensive open plain with the enemy in front, the flanks unprotected, and the river Lircai, a tributary of the Maule, close in the rear. The first shot was fired at half-past ten in the morning, and the action continued, with some inter- vals in effecting changes of position, until nearly four o'clock in the afternoon, when the rout was complete. The result is said to have been doubtful until two o'clock, at which period Freire's cavalry, which con- sisted of about six hundred men, including militia and Indians, and commanded by Colonel Viel, being decoyed too far in a charge, was taken in flank, and fled across the river Lircai, towards the north, com- pletely discomfited, and accompanied, we believe, by General Freire, who thus abandoned the infantry to its fate. The situation of the three weak battalions, Nos. 1, 7 and 8, was now indeed desperate, as the ground was so favourable to cavalry, and the neigh- bourhood offered them no accessible place of defence or refuge. To complete the disaster, their few pieces of artillery were yoked to oxen, which soon became furious and unmanageable, while that of Prieto, being drawn by horses, was moved quickly over the field. When they formed into squares to resist the hostile cavalry, they were mowed down by artillery, and, when they deployed into line, the cavalry was upon them. In this dreadful emergency they maintained the conflict for nearly an hour, with all the obstinacy of despair ; and at length, in attempting to charge in column, they were completely broken. There are two lines by the immortal Byron so concisely, and

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