Then the Arribeños again advanced by the cross street from the north, poured in a volley at not more than twenty yards' distance, and charged. The small English force was cut in two, one part made good its retreat to the suburbs, the other, driven into the church by a fresh advance of the negroes led by Asneiros, had no alternative but to surrender.
The officer in command surrendered to Lieutenant Asneiros, his men threw down their arms, the English flag was removed from the tower of the church, and Asneiros won the second sword he took that day.
Meantime General Liniers, as a first step to the recapture of the church of Santo Domingo, completely surrounded the house occupied by Colonel Cadogan, keeping up a constant fire upon the small garrison, till, when he had only forty men left able to fire a musket, that officer surrendered.
Liniers then despatched an officer with a flag of truce to General Crauford, telling him that the assault had failed in all quarters, that the losses of the English had been fearful, that several detachments had surrendered, that he himself was surrounded and completely cut off, and calling upon him to yield himself and his men prisoners of war. To which summons General Crauford returned a decided refusal.
On receipt of this answer General Liniers directed an advance from all sides upon the church, militia and armed citizens swarmed on all the neighbouring azoteas, and their concentrated fire soon overpowered that of the British sharp-shooters who occupied the towers and leads of the church, and forced them to retire.
In front of the principal door of the church was an open space, on which a portion of the light infantry were stationed, screened by intervening houses from the fire of the guns on the entrenchments of the Plaza Mayor, and on the south side the fort. Don Felipe Navarro, who commanded on the block to the west of the church, had just heard of the deaths of his sister and of Don Isidro Lorea; furious at the intelligence, and seeing the retreat of the sharp-shooters from the towers and roof of the church, he led his men right up to the parapet overlooking the open space, and springing upon it pointed with his sword to the troops below him—
"There they are, muchachos! Fire upon the heretics! Fire!"
The words were hardly past his lips ere a ball struck him in the chest, he fell from the parapet into the street below, dead ere he reached the ground.
But now from every azotea round a deadly fire was directed upon the open space, and the troops, unable to make any effective reply, were withdrawn into the church.