Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/20

16 throwing all before them and precluding the power to rally. The carnage was dreadful, and the calculation is that in this one attack they lost 1200 men. The Portuguese horse took this opportunity of making a charge, but galloped away when they were near the enemy, as they have always done. The handful of British performed wonders. Then along the whole line the enemy began to waver. General Ferguson's brigade with General Spencer's charged the line and guns, when they fled in confusion, leaving the whole of the latter in our possession.'

In this letter, too, he gives details of the estimation in which the British force was held by the enemy. 'The courage of British troops in the field admits of no doubt, but it is a source of peculiar satisfaction to have discovered that in skill and manoeuvring light troops we are in no way inferior to the French.' As to our artillery, ' they confess ours to be superior to any of theirs. They fired much, and we have scarcely a man wounded by artillery fire. The French cavalry simply disgraced themselves.'

The next extract describes the dispute that took place on the halt of the British force, as soon as the enemy were routed. It is specially interesting, as being the contemporary record of an eye-witness: — 'Sir H. Burrard arrived on the field in the midst of the attack on the left. He made no offer to assume the command. When the enemy were in full retreat, Sir A. Wellesley asked for the guides to Torres Vedras. It was replied that they were at hand, and Fergu-