"SIR,--I have great pleasure in communicating to you, by direction of Colonel Ponsonby, the cavalry and brigade orders issued on a late occasion, when the FIFTH DRAGOON GUARDS attacked a very superior enemy, and forced him to retire with the loss of about one hundred killed and wounded, besides one lieutenant-colonel, two captains, one lieutenant, and one hundred and forty men taken prisoners, with near one hundred horses. This affair presents a pledge of the future good conduct of the regiment whenever an opportunity again appears of meeting the enemy, and must be peculiarly gratifying to you and to the remainder of the corps at the depôt in England, to hear from such undoubted authority, that the regiment still continues to support that high character which it gained on many former glorious occasions, and in our estimation this last is not the least:--the regiment having, previous to the attack on three times its numbers of the enemy's best cavalry, made a forced march of upwards of sixty miles without halting,--four of the last of which was at a very brisk pace, through a difficult country, over rocks, ravines, and stone walls; then forming with unexampled celerity, and charging with equal and regular rapidity through a grove of olive-trees until it came in contact with the enemy, who retired in great disorder under the cover of his infantry and guns. Our loss in this brilliant affair was comparatively trifling, as will be seen by the subjoined statement of the names of the brave men who fell.
Thus the DRAGOON GUARDS of the nineteenth century are found rivalling the celebrated heavy HORSE of the preceding ages. The regiment lost, on this occasion, one corporal and fourteen private men killed; Major Prescot, Lieutenant Walker, three serjeants, one corporal, and twenty-one private men wounded.
A detachment of the FIFTH DRAGOON GUARDS escorted the prisoners captured on this occasion to the fortress of Elvas in Portugal. The regiment afterwards marched to Crato.
Advancing from Crato into Spain, the FIFTH DRAGOON GUARDS took part in the movements by which the French were driven from Salamanca, and the forts at that city were besieged and captured.
After the capture of the forts, the regiment advanced upon Toro, but was subsequently ordered to retire to Alaejos to support a body of troops, under Lieutenant-General Sir Stapleton Cotton, posted on the Trabancos; and several retrograde movements followed, which were succeeded by the battle of _Salamanca_. During the night before this eventful day, while the regiment was dismounted, a violent storm occurred. The thunder rolled with tremendous violence over the heads of the men and horses; the lightning played in sheets of fire and shed its blazing gleams upon the polished arms; and the rain fell in torrents. One flash fell among the FIFTH DRAGOON GUARDS; the terrified horses breaking loose galloped wildly about in the dark, and every additional clap of thunder and blaze of lightning augmented the confusion. Twenty men of the regiment were trampled down and disabled, and several horses escaped into the French lines.