The attack was already made, the cavalry advancing, when Ross, under cover of some underwood, deployed in double-quick. Within a short distance, a close and murderous volley was thrown in, and the cavalry completely broken. The British line cheered and moved forward, the French gave way, and a complete déroute succeeded. No victory, considering the numbers opposed, could have been more decisive. Seven hundred killed, a thousand prisoners, and a large proportion of wounded, were the estimated loss of the enemy, while this was achieved by an amount of casualties greatly disproportioned, the victors having but one officer and forty-four men killed, and eleven officers and two hundred and seventy-one men wounded.
For that night the British army bivouacked on the battleground, and having received supplies from the shipping, advanced on the 6th to overtake the enemy’s rear; while a brigade under Colonel Oswald marched on the French depot at Montelione, of which it took possession, making six hundred prisoners. The whole of the commissariat stores, with the entire baggage, and the military chest, were captured; and the remnant of the French army was saved only by abandoning arms and accoutrements, and retiring with all the confusion attendant upon a signal defeat.
Nothing could exceed the enthusiasm with which the victors were received. The defended places along the coast, turned on the land side by the army, of course surrendered unconditionally. The whole of the Peninsula was rapidly crossed, and on the 11th of July, the leading British brigade invested the Castle of Scylla.
This place, so deeply associated with ancient recollections, stands on a sheer rock, commanding the eastern point of the entrance of the Straits of Messina. The difficulties experienced by navigators occasionally in this confined channel, almost realise the old-world legends of its dangers. Once caught in the currents, when passing Cape Pelorus with light or contrary winds, a vessel must run for the anchorage, which lies directly beneath the batteries of the castle; and hence the possession of the place, especially to a maritime nation, was an object of paramount importance.
For some days the efforts of the English were confined to firing on the castle with the field guns. Of course, artillery of a light calibre could effect nothing but annoyance; until, on the 19th, when some heavy cannon were obtained from Messina. On the 21st they were placed in battery and opened with great effect; and on the same evening, as the guns were breaching rapidly, the commandant accepted terms, and surrendered the castle to the besiegers.
Although military achievements, on a minor scale, have been eclipsed by the more brilliant conquests obtained by British armies in subsequent campaigns, still Maida was not only a glorious, but, in its results, a most important victory. Independently of humbling a presumptuous enemy, raising the depressed reputation of the British army, and converting the distrusting population of Sicily into grateful admirers, the positive results of Sir John Stuart’s expedition were the destruction of all the military and naval resources of Calabria, and the occupation of a post which for eighteen months secured the navigation of the Straits of Messina, and, in a great degree, occasioned the meditated descent on Sicily to fail.
CHAPTER V.
THE BATTLE OF ROLICA.
1808.
Spain and Portugal having been overrun by the French armies, Britain determined to make an effort in the cause of freedom, and come to the assistance of the oppressed.
The force destined for the relief of Portugal was sent partly from Ireland, and partly from Gibraltar. Nine thousand men from Cork, under Sir Arthur Wellesley, landed in Mondego bay on the 6th of August, and these were joined, two days afterwards, by Spencer’s division of five thousand, making thus a total force of about fourteen thousand, in which two hundred of the 20th light dragoons and eighteen pieces of artillery were included.