THE ALLIES ARE DEFEATED AT ALMANZA.

Charles, however, was persuaded to penetrate once more to Madrid, and give battle to the enemy wherever they should appear. On the thirteenth day of March the army was assembled at Caudela, to the number of sixteen thousand men; under the auspices of the marquis das Minas, to whom the earl of Galway was second in command. They marched towards Yecla, and undertook the siege of Vilena; but having received intelligence that the duke of Berwick was in the neighbourhood, they advanced on the fourteenth day of April in four columns towards the town of Almanza, where the enemy were drawn up in order of battle, their number being considerably superior to that of the confederates. The battle began about two in the afternoon, and the whole front of each army was fully engaged. The English and Dutch squadrons on the left, sustained by the Portuguese horse of the second line, were overpowered after a gallant resistance. The centre, consisting chiefly of battalions from Great Britain and Holland, obliged the enemy to give way, and drove their first upon their second line; but the Portuguese cavalry on the right being broken at the first charge, the foot betook themselves to flight; so that the English and Dutch troops being left naked on the flanks, were surrounded and attacked on every side. In this dreadful emergency they formed themselves into a square, and retired from the field of battle. By this time the men were quite spent with fatigue, and all their ammunition exhausted: they were ignorant of the country, abandoned by their horse, destitute of provisions, and cut off from all hope of supply. Moved by these dismal considerations, they capitulated and surrendered themselves prisoners of war, to the amount of thirteen battalions. The Portuguese, and part of the English horse, with the infantry that guarded the baggage, retreated to Alcira, where they were joined by the earl of Galway, with about five and twenty hundred dragoons which he had brought from the field of battle. About three thousand men of the allied army were killed upon the spot, and among that number brigadier Killegrew, with many officers of distinction. The earl of Galway, who charged in person at the head of Guiscard’s dragoons, received two deep cuts in the face. The marquis das Minas was run through the arm, and saw his concubine, who fought in the habit of an Amazon, killed by his side: the lords Tyrawley, Mark Ker, and colonel Glayton, were wounded: all their artillery, together with an hundred and twenty colours and standards, and about ten thousand men, were taken; so that no victory could be more complete; yet it was not purchased without the loss of two thousand men slain in the action, including some officers of eminence. The duke of Berwick, who commanded the troops of king Philip, acquired a great addition of fame by his conduct and behaviour before and during the engagement; but his authority was superseded by the duke of Orleans, who arrived in the army immediately after the battle. This prince seemed to entertain some private views of his own; for he took no effectual step to improve the victory. He began a private negotiation with the earl of Galway, during which the two armies lay inactive on the banks of the Cinca; and he concluded the campaign with the siege of Lerida, which was surrendered by capitulation on the second day of November: then the troops on both sides went into winter quarters. The earl of Galway and the Marquis das Minas embarked at Barcelona for Lisbon, and general Carpenter remained commander of the English forces quartered in Catalonia, which was now the only part of Spain that remained to king Charles.