There is no Chapter IV in this book.

The errata changes have been included in the file.]

ADVENTURES IN THE RIFLE BRIGADE,

IN THE PENINSULA,FRANCE, AND THE NETHERLANDS,

FROM 1809 TO 1815.

BY

CAPTAIN J. KINCAID.

LONDON:

T. AND W. BOONE, STRAND.

MDCCCXXX.

TO

MAJOR-GEN. SIR ANDREW BARNARD,

K. C. B.

COLONEL OF THE FIRST BATTALION RIFLE BRIGADE,

AND ITS LEADER

DURING A LONG AND BRILLIANT PERIOD

OF ITS HISTORY,

THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED

BY HIS VERY OBEDIENT

AND VERY OBLIGED HUMBLE SERVANT,

J. KINCAID.

ADVERTISEMENT.

In tracing the following scenes, I have chiefly drawn on the

reminiscences of my military life, and endeavoured faithfully to

convey to the mind of the reader the impression which they made on my

own at the time of their occurrence. Should any errors, as to dates or

trifling circumstances, have inadvertently crept into my narrative, I

hope they will be ascribed to want of memory, rather than to any

wilful intention to mislead. I am aware, that some objections may be

taken to my style; for

                          "Rude am I in my speech,

  And little bless'd with the set phrase of peace:

  For, since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,

  Till now, some nine moons wasted, they have us'd

  Their dearest action in the tented field:

  And little of this world can I speak,

  More than pertains to feats of broil and battle;

  And therefore little shall I grace my cause

  In speaking for myself; yet, by your gracious patience,

  I will a round unvarnished tale deliver,"

CONTENTS.

                                                                  Page

  CHAPTER I.                                                         1

Joined the Rifles. Walcheren Expedition. A young Soldier. A Marine

View. Campaign in South Beeveland. Retreat to Scotland.

  CHAP. II.                                                          4

Rejoin the Regiment. Embark for the Peninsula. Arrival in the Tagus.

The City of Lisbon, with its Contents. Sail for Figuera. Landing

extraordinary. Billet ditto. The City of Coimbra. A hard Case. A cold

Case, in which a favourite Scotch Dance is introduced. Climate. The

Duke of Wellington.

  CHAP. III.                                                        15

Other People, Myself, and my Regiment. Retreat to the Lines of Torres

Vedras. Leave Coimbra, followed by a select group of Natives. Ford the

Streets of Condacia in good spirits. A Provost-Marshal and his

favourites. A fall. Convent of Batalha. Turned out of Allenquer.

Passed through Sobral. Turned into Arruda. Quartering of the Light

Division, and their Quarters at Arruda. Burial of an only Child. Lines

of Torres Vedras. Difference of opinion between Massena and Myself.

Military Customs.

  CHAP. V.                                                           38

Campaign of 1811 opens. Massena's Retreat. Wretched Condition of the

Inhabitants on the Line of March. Affairs with the Enemy, near Pombal.

Description of a Bivouac. Action near Redinha. Destruction of Condacia

and Action near it. Burning of the Village of Illama, and Misery of

its Inhabitants. Action at Foz D'Aronce. Confidential Servants with

Donkey-Assistants.

  CHAP. VI.                                                         61

Passage of the Mondego. Swearing to a large Amount. Two Prisoners,

with their Two Views. Two Nuns, Two Pieces of Dough, and Two Kisses. A

Halt. Affair near Frexedas. Arrival near Guarda. Murder. A stray

Sentry. Battle of Sabugal. Spanish and Portuguese Frontiers. Blockade

of Almeida. Battle-like. Current Value of Lord Wellington's Nose.

Battle of Fuentes D'Onor. The Day after the Battle. A grave Remark.

The _Padre's_ House. Retreat of the Enemy.

  CHAP. VII.                                                        83

March to Estremadura. At Soito, growing Accommodations for Man and

Beast. British Taste displayed by Portuguese Wolves. False Alarm.

Luxuries of Roquingo Camp. A Chaplain of the Forces. Return towards

the North. Quarters near Castello de Vide. Blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo.

Village of Atalya; Fleas abundant; Food scarce. Advance of the French

Army. Affairs near Guinaldo. Our Minister administered to. An

unexpected Visit from our General and his Followers. End of the

Campaign of 1811. Winter Quarters.

  CHAP. VIII.                                                      100

Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. The Garrison of an Outwork relieved. Spending

an Evening abroad. A Musical Study. An Addition to Soup. A short Cut.

Storming of the Town. A sweeping Clause. Advantages of leading a

Storming Party. Looking for a Customer. Disadvantages of being a

stormed Party. Confusion of all Parties. A waking Dream. Death of

General Crawford. Accident. Deaths.

  CHAP. IX.                                                        121

March to Estremadura. A Deserter shot. Riding for an Appetite. Effect

the Cure of a Sick Lady. Siege of Badajos. Trench-Work. Varieties

during the Siege. Taste of the Times. Storming of the Town. Its Fall.

Officers of a French Battalion. Not shot by Accident. Military

Shopkeepers. Lost Legs and cold Hearts. Affecting Anecdote. My

Servant. A Consignment to Satan. March again for the North. Sir Sidney

Beckwith.

  CHAP. X.                                                         143

A Farewell Address to Portalegré. History of a Night in Castello

Branco. Regimental Colours lost, with Directions where to find them.

Cases in which a Victory is sometimes won by those who lost it.

Advance to Salamanca. The City. The British Position on St.

Christoval. Affair in Position. Marmont's Change of Position and

Retreat. A Case of Bad Luck. Advance to Rueda, and Customs there.

Retire to Castrejon. Affairs on the 18th and 19th of July. Battle of

Salamanca, and Defeat of the Enemy.

  CHAP. XI.                                                        165

Distinguished Characters. A Charge of Dragoons. A Charge against the

Nature of Things. Olmeda and the French General, Ferez. Advance

towards Madrid. Adventures of my Dinner. The Town of Segovia. El

Palacio del Rio Frio. The Escurial. Enter Madrid. Rejoicings. Nearly

happy. Change of a Horse. Change of Quarters. A Change confounded.

Retire towards Salamanca. Boar-Hunt, Dinner-Hunt, and Bull-Hunt. A

Portuguese Funeral conducted by Rifle Undertakers.

  CHAP. XII.                                                       183

Reach Salamanca. Retreat from it. Pig Hunting, an Enemy to

Sleep-Hunting. Putting one's Foot in it. Affair on the 17th of

November. Bad Legs sometimes last longer than good ones. A Wet Birth.

Prospectus of a Day's Work. A lost _déjûné_ better than a found one.

Advantages not taken. A disagreeable Amusement, End of the Campaign of

1812. Winter Quarters. Orders and Disorders treated. Farewell Opinion

of Ancient Allies. My House.

  CHAP. XIII.                                                      200

A Review. Assembly of the Army. March to Salamanca. To Aldea Nueva. To

Toro. An Affair of the Hussar Brigade. To Palencia. To the

Neighbourhood of Burgos. To the Banks of the Ebro. Fruitful sleeping

place. To Medina. A Dance before it was due. Smell the Foe. Affair at

St. Milan. A Physical River.

  CHAP. XIV.                                                       213

Battle of Vittoria. Defeat of the Enemy. Confusion among their

Followers. Plunder. Colonel Cameron. Pursuit, and the Capture of their

Last Gun. Arrive near Pampeluna. At Villalba. An Irish method of

making a useless Bed useful.

  CHAP. XV.                                                        231

March to intercept Clausel. Tafalla. Olite. The dark End of a Night

March to Casada. Clausel's Escape. Sanguessa. My Tent struck. Return

to Villalba. Weighty Considerations on Females. St. Esteban. A Severe

Dance. Position at Bera. Soult's Advance, and Battle of the Pyrenees.

His Defeat and subsequent Actions. A Morning's Ride.

  CHAP. XVI.                                                       246

An Anniversary Dinner. Affair with the Enemy, and Fall of St.

Sebastian. A Building Speculation. A Fighting one, storming the

Heights of Bera. A Picture of France from the Pyrenees. Returns after

an Action. Sold by my Pay-Serjeant. A Recruit born at his Post.

Between Two Fires, a Sea and a Land one. Position of La Rhune. My

Picture taken in a Storm. Refreshing Invention for wintry Weather.

  CHAP. XVII.                                                      263

Battle of the Nivelle, and Defeat of the Enemy. A Bird of Evil Omen.

Chateau D'Arcangues. Prudence. An Enemy's Gratitude. Passage of the

Nive, and Battles near Bayonne, from 9th to 13th December.

  CHAP. XVIII.                                                     280

Change of Quarters. Change of Diet. Suttlers. Our new Quarter. A

long-going Horse gone. New Clothing. Adam's lineal Descendants. St.

Palais. Action at Tarbes. Faubourg of Toulouse. The green Man. Passage

of the Garonne. Battle of Toulouse. Peace. Castle Sarrazin. A Tender

Point.

  CHAP. XIX.                                                       301

Commencement of the War of 1815. Embark for Rotterdam. Ship's Stock.

Ship struck. A Pilot, a Smuggler, and a Lawyer. A Boat without Stock.

Join the Regiment at Brussels.

  CHAP. XX.                                                        307

Relative Situation of the Troops. March from Brussels. The Prince and

the Beggar. Battle of Quatre-Bras.

  CHAP. XXI.                                                       327

Battle of Waterloo, 18th June, 1815. "A Horse! a Horse!" Breakfast.

Position. Disposition. Meeting of _particular_ Friends. Dish of Powder

and Ball. Fricassee of Swords. End of First Course. Pounding. Brewing.

Peppering. Cutting and Maiming. Fury. Tantalizing. Charging. Cheering.

Chasing. Opinionizing. Anecdotes. The End.

ADVENTURES IN THE RIFLE BRIGADE.

CHAPTER I.

     Joined the Rifles. Walcheren Expedition. A young Soldier. A

     Marine View. Campaign in South Beeveland. Retreat to Scotland.

I joined the second battalion rifle brigade, (then the ninety-fifth,)

at Hythe-Barracks, in the spring of 1809, and, in a month after, we

proceeded to form a part of the expedition to Holland, under the Earl

of Chatham.

With the usual Quixotic feelings of a youngster, I remember how very

desirous I was, on the march to Deal, to impress the minds of the

natives with a suitable notion of the magnitude of my importance, by

carrying a donkey-load of pistols in my belt, and screwing my

naturally placid countenance up to a pitch of ferocity beyond what it

was calculated to bear.

We embarked in the Downs, on board the Hussar frigate, and afterwards

removed to the Namur, a seventy-four, in which we were conveyed to our

destination.

I had never before been in a ship of war, and it appeared to me, the

first night, as if the sailors and marines did not pull well together,

excepting by the ears; for my hammock was slung over the descent into

the cockpit, and I had scarcely turned-in when an officer of marines

came and abused his sentry for not seeing the lights out below,

according to orders. The sentry proceeded to explain, that the

_middies_ would not put them out for him, when the naked shoulders and

the head of one of them, illuminated with a red nightcap, made its

appearance above the hatchway, and began to take a lively share in

the argument. The marine officer, looking down, with some

astonishment, demanded, "d--n you, sir, who are you?" to which the

head and shoulders immediately rejoined, "and d--n and b--t you, sir,

who are you?"

We landed on the island of South Beeveland, where we remained about

three weeks, playing at soldiers, smoking _mynheer's_ long clay pipes,

and drinking his _vrow's_ butter-milk, for which I paid liberally with

my precious blood to their infernal musquitos; not to mention that I

had all the extra valour shaken out of me by a horrible ague, which

commenced a campaign on my carcass, and compelled me to retire upon

Scotland, for the aid of my native air, by virtue of which it was

ultimately routed.

I shall not carry my first chapter beyond my first campaign, as I am

anxious that my reader should not expend more than his first breath

upon an event which cost too many their last.

CHAP. II.

     Rejoin the Regiment. Embark for the Peninsula. Arrival in the

     Tagus. The City of Lisbon, with its Contents. Sail for Figuera.

     Landing extraordinary. Billet ditto. The City of Coimbra. A hard

     Case. A cold Case, in which a favourite Scotch Dance is

     introduced. Climate. The Duke of Wellington.

I rejoined the battalion, at Hythe, in the spring of 1810, and,

finding that the company to which I belonged had embarked, to join the

first battalion in the Peninsula, and that they were waiting at

Spithead for a fair wind, I immediately applied, and obtained

permission, to join them.

We were about the usual time at sea, and indulged in the usual

amusements, beginning with keeping journals, in which I succeeded in

inserting two remarks on the state of the weather, when I found my

inclination for book-making superseded by the more disagreeable study

of appearing eminently happy under an irresistible inclination towards

sea-sickness. We anchored in the Tagus in September;--no thanks to the

ship, for she was a leaky one, and wishing foul winds to the skipper,

for he was a bad one.

To look at Lisbon from the Tagus, there are few cities in the universe

that can promise so much, and none, I hope, that can keep it so badly.

I only got on shore one day, for a few hours, and, as I never again

had an opportunity of correcting the impression, I have no objection

to its being considered an uncharitable one; but I wandered for a time

amid the abominations of its streets and squares, in the vain hope

that I had got involved among a congregation of stables and outhouses;

but when I was, at length, compelled to admit it as the miserable

apology for the fair city that I had seen from the harbour, I began to

contemplate, with astonishment, and no little amusement, the very

appropriate appearance of its inhabitants.

The church, I concluded, had, on that occasion, indulged her numerous

offspring with a holiday, for they occupied a much larger portion of

the streets than all the world besides. Some of them were languidly

strolling about, and looking the sworn foes of time, while others

crowded the doors of the different coffee-houses; the fat

jolly-looking friars cooling themselves with lemonade, and the lean

mustard-pot-faced ones sipping coffee out of thimble-sized cups, with

as much caution as if it had been physic.

The next class that attracted my attention was the numerous collection

of well-starved dogs, who were indulging in all the luxury of extreme

poverty on the endless dung-heaps.

There, too, sat the industrious citizen, basking in the sunshine of

his shop-door, and gathering in the flock which is so bountifully

reared on his withered tribe of children. There strutted the spruce

cavalier, with his upper-man furnished at the expense of his lower,

and looking ridiculously imposing: and there--but sacred be their

daughters, for the sake of _one_, who shed a lustre over her squalid

sisterhood, sufficiently brilliant to redeem their whole nation from

the odious sin of ugliness. I was looking for an official person,

living somewhere near the Convent D'Estrella, and was endeavouring to

express my wishes to a boy, when I heard a female voice, in broken

English, from a balcony above, giving the information I desired. I

looked up, and saw a young girl, dressed in white, who was loveliness

itself! In the few words which passed between us, of lively

unconstrained civility on her part, and pure confounded gratitude on

mine, she seemed so perfectly after my own heart, that she lit a torch

in it which burnt for two years and a half.

It must not detract from her merits that she was almost the only one

that I saw during that period in which it was my fate to tread war's

roughest, rudest path,--daily staring his grim majesty out of

countenance, and nightly slumbering on the cold earth, or in the

tenantless mansion, for I felt as if she would have been the chosen

companion of my waking dreams in _rosier_ walks, as I never recalled

the fair vision to my aid, even in the worst of times, that it did not

act upon my drooping spirits like a glass of brandy.

It pleased the great disposer of naval events to remove us to another

and a better ship, and to send us off for Figuera, next day, with a

foul wind.

Sailing at the rate of one mile in two hours, we reached Figuera's Bay

at the end of eight days, and were welcomed by about a hundred hideous

looking Portuguese women, whose joy was so excessive that they waded

up to their arm-pits through a heavy surf, and insisted on carrying us

on shore on their backs! I never clearly ascertained whether they had

been actuated by the purity of love or gold.

Our men were lodged for the night in a large barn, and the officers

billetted in town. Mine chanced to be on the house of a mad-woman,

whose extraordinary appearance I never shall forget. Her petticoats

scarcely reached to the knee, and all above the lower part of the

bosom was bare; and though she looked not more than middle aged, her

skin seemed as if it had been regularly prepared to receive the

impression of her last will and testament; her head was defended by a

chevaux-de-frise of black wiry hair, which pointed fiercely in every

direction, while her eyes looked like two burnt holes in a blanket. I

had no sooner opened the door than she stuck her arms a-kimbo, and,

opening a mouth, which stretched from ear to ear, she began

vociferating "_bravo, bravissimo_!"

Being a stranger alike to the appearance and the manners of the

natives, I thought it possible that the former might have been nothing

out of the common run, and concluding that she was overjoyed at seeing

her country reinforced, at that perilous moment, by a fellow upwards

of six feet high, and thinking it necessary to sympathize in some

degree in her patriotic feelings, I began to "_bravo_" too; but as her

second shout ascended ten degrees, and kept increasing in that ratio,

until it amounted to absolute frenzy, I faced to the right-about, and,

before our _tête-à-tête_ had lasted the brief space of three-quarters

of a minute, I disappeared with all possible haste, her terrific yells

vibrating in my astonished ears long after I had turned the corner of

the street; nor did I feel perfectly at ease until I found myself

stretched on a bundle of straw in a corner of the barn occupied by the

men.

We proceeded, next morning, to join the army; and, as our route lay

through the city of Coimbra, we came to the magnanimous resolution of

providing ourselves with all manner of comforts and equipments for the

campaign on our arrival there; but, when we entered it, at the end of

the second day, our disappointment was quite eclipsed by astonishment

at finding ourselves the only living things in a city, which ought to

have been furnished with twenty thousand souls.

Lord Wellington was then in the course of his retreat from the

frontiers of Spain to the lines of Torres Vedras, and had compelled

the inhabitants on the line of march to abandon their homes, and to

destroy or carry away every thing that could be of service to the

enemy. It was a measure that ultimately saved their country, though

ruinous and distressing to those concerned, and on no class of

individuals did it bear harder, for the moment, than our own little

detachment, a company of rosy-cheeked, chubbed youths, who, after

three months feeding on ship's dumplings, were thus thrust, at a

moment of extreme activity, in the face of an advancing foe, supported

by a pound of raw beef, drawn every day fresh from the bullock, and a

mouldy biscuit.

The difficulties we encountered were nothing out of the usual course

of old campaigners; but, untrained and unprovided as I was, I still

looked back upon the twelve or fourteen days following the battle of

Busaco as the most trying I have ever experienced, for we were on our

legs from daylight until dark, in daily contact with the enemy; and,

to satisfy the stomach of an ostrich, I had, as already stated, only a

pound of beef, a pound of biscuit, and one glass of rum. A

brother-officer was kind enough to strap my boat-cloak and portmanteau

on the mule carrying his heavy baggage, which, on account of the

proximity of the foe, was never permitted to be within a day's march

of us, so that, in addition to my simple uniform, my only covering

every night was the canopy of heaven, from whence the dews descended

so refreshingly, that I generally awoke, at the end of an hour,

chilled, and wet to the skin; and I could only purchase an equal

length of additional repose by jumping up and running about, until I

acquired a sleeping quantity of warmth. Nothing in life can be more

ridiculous than seeing a lean, lank fellow start from a profound

sleep, at midnight, and begin lashing away at the highland fling, as

if St. Andrew himself had been playing the bagpipes; but it was a

measure that I very often had recourse to, as the cleverest method of

producing heat. In short, though the prudent general may preach the

propriety of light baggage in the enemy's presence, I will ever

maintain that there is marvellous small personal comfort in travelling

so fast and so lightly as I did.

The Portuguese farmers will tell you that the beauty of their climate

consists in their crops receiving from the nightly dews the refreshing

influence of a summer's shower, and that they ripen in the daily sun.

But _they_ are a sordid set of rascals! Whereas _I_ speak with the

enlightened views of a man of war, and say, that it is poor

consolation to me, after having been deprived of my needful repose,

and kept all night in a fever, dancing wet and cold, to be told that I

shall be warm enough in the morning? it is like frying a person after

he has been boiled; and I insisted upon it, that if their sun had been

milder and their dews lighter that I should have found it much more

pleasant.

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

From the moment that I joined the army, so intense was my desire to

get a look at this illustrious chief, that I never should have

forgiven the Frenchman that had killed me before I effected it. My

curiosity did not remain long ungratified; for, as our post was next

the enemy, I found, when anything was to be done, that it was his

also. He was just such a man as I had figured in my mind's eye, and I

thought that the stranger would betray a grievous want of penetration

who could not select the Duke of Wellington from amid five hundred in

the same uniform.

CHAP. III.

     Other People, Myself, and my Regiment. Retreat to the Lines of

     Torres Vedras. Leave Coimbra, followed by a select group of

     Natives. Ford the Streets of Condacia in good spirit. A

     Provost-Marshal and his favourites. A fall. Convent of Batalha.

     Turned out of Allenquer. Passed through Sobral. Turned into

     Arruda. Quartering of the Light Division, and their Quarters at

     Arruda. Burial of an only Child. Lines of Torres Vedras.

     Difference of opinion between Massena and Myself. Military

     Customs.

Having now brought myself regularly into the field, under the renowned

Wellington, should this narrative, by any accident, fall into the

hands of others who served there, and who may be unreasonable enough

to expect their names to be mentioned in it, let me tell them that

they are most confoundedly mistaken! Every man may write a book for

himself, if he likes, but _this_ is mine; and, as I borrow no man's

story, neither will I give any man a particle of credit for his deeds,

as I have got so little for my own that I have none to spare. Neither

will I mention any regiment but my own, if I can possibly avoid it,

for there is none other that I like so much, and none else so much

deserves it; for we were the light regiment of the Light Division, and

fired the first and last shot in almost every battle, siege, and

skirmish, in which the army was engaged during the war.

In stating the foregoing resolution, however, with regard to

regiments, I beg to be understood as identifying our old and gallant

associates, the forty-third and fifty-second, as a part of ourselves,

for they bore their share in every thing, and I love them as I hope to

do my better half, (when I come to be divided,) wherever _we_ were,

_they_ were; and although the nature of our arm generally gave us more

employment in the way of skirmishing, yet, whenever it came to a

pinch, independent of a suitable mixture of them among us, we had

only to look behind to see a line, in which we might place a degree of

confidence, almost equal to our hopes in heaven; nor were we ever

disappointed. There never was a corps of riflemen in the hands of such

supporters!

October 1st, 1810.--We stood to our arms at day light this morning, on

a hill in front of Coimbra; and, as the enemy soon after came on in

force, we retired before them through the city. The civil authorities,

in making their own hurried escape, had totally forgotten that they

had left a gaol full of rogues unprovided for, and who, as we were

passing near them, made the most hideous screaming for relief. Our

quarter-master-general very humanely took some men, who broke open the

doors, and the whole of them were soon seen howling along the bridge

into the wide world, in the most delightful delirium, with the French

dragoons at their heels.

We retired, the same night, through Condacia, where the commissariat

were destroying quantities of stores that they were unable to carry

off. They handed out shoes and shirts to any one that would take them,

and the streets were literally running ankle deep with rum, in which

the soldiers were dipping their cups and helping themselves as they

marched along. The commissariat, some years afterwards, called for a

return of the men who had received shirts and shoes on this occasion,

with a view of making us pay for them, but we very briefly replied

that the one half were dead, and the other half would be d----d before

they would pay any thing.

We retired this day to Leria, and, at the entrance of the city, saw an

English and a Portuguese soldier dangling by the bough of a tree--the

first summary example I had ever seen of martial law.

A provost-marshal, on actual service, is a character of considerable

pretensions, as he can flog at pleasure, always moves about with a

guard of honour, and though he cannot altogether stop a man's breath

without an order, yet, when he is ordered to hang a given number out

of a crowd of plunderers, his _friends_ are not particularly

designated, so that he can invite any one that he takes a fancy to, to

follow him to the nearest tree, where he, without further ceremony,

relieves him from the cares and troubles of this wicked world.

There was only one _furnished_ shop remaining in the town at this

time, and I went in to see what they had got to sell; but I had

scarcely past the threshold when I heard a tremendous clatter at my

heels, as if the opposite house had been pitched in at the door after

me; and, on wheeling round to ascertain the cause, I found, when the

dust cleared away, that a huge stone balcony, with iron railings,

which had been over the door, overcharged with a collection of old

wives looking at the troops, had tumbled down; and in spite of their

vociferations for the aid of their patron saints, some them were

considerably damaged.

We halted one night near the Convent of Batalha, one of the finest

buildings in Portugal. It has, I believe, been clearly established,

that a living man in ever so bad health is better than two dead ones;

but it appears that the latter will vary in value according to

circumstances, for we found here, in very high preservation, the body

of King John of Portugal, who founded the edifice in commemoration of

some victory, God knows how long ago; and though he would have been

reckoned a highly valuable antique, within a glass case, in an

apothecary's hall in England, yet he was held so cheap in his own

house, that the very finger which most probably pointed the way to the

victory alluded to, is now in the baggage of the Rifle Brigade!

Reader, point not _thy_ finger at me, for I am not the man.

Retired on the morning of a very wet, stormy day to Allenquer, a small

town on the top of a mountain, surrounded by still higher ones; and,

as the enemy had not shewn themselves the evening before, we took

possession of the houses, with a tolerable prospect of being permitted

the unusual treat of eating a dinner under cover. But by the time

that the pound of beef was parboiled, and while an officer of dragoons

was in the act of reporting that he had just patrolled six leagues to

the front, without seeing any signs of an enemy, we saw the

indefatigable rascals, on the mountain opposite our windows, just

beginning to wind round us, with a mixture of cavalry and infantry;

the wind blowing so strong, that the long tail of each particular

horse stuck as stiffly out in the face of the one behind, as if the

whole had been strung upon a cable and dragged by the leaders. We

turned out a few companies, and kept them in check while the division

was getting under arms, spilt the soup as usual, and transferring the

smoking solids to the haversack, for future mastication, we continued

our retreat.

We past through the town of Sobral, soon after dark, the same night;

and, by the aid of some rushlights in a window, saw two apothecaries,

the very counterparts of Romeo's, who were the only remnants of the

place, and had braved the horrors of war for the sake of the

gallipots, and in the hopes that their profession would be held

sacred. They were both on the same side of the counter, looking each

other point blank in the face, their sharp noses not three inches

apart, and neither daring to utter a syllable, but both listening

intensely to the noise outside. Whatever their courage might have been

screwed up to before, it was evident that we were indebted for their

presence now to their fears; and their appearance altogether was so

ludicrous, that they excited universal shouts of laughter as they came

within view of the successive divisions.

Our long retreat ended at midnight, on our arrival at the handsome

little town of Arruda, which was destined to be the piquet post of our

division, in front of the fortified lines. The quartering of our

division, whether by night or by day, was an affair of about five

minutes. The quarter-master-general preceded the troops, accompanied

by the brigade-majors and the quarter-masters of regiments; and after

marking off certain houses for his general and staff, he split the

remainder of the town between the majors of brigades: they in their

turn provided for their generals and staff, and then made a wholesale

division of streets among the quarter-masters of regiments, who, after

providing for their commanding officers and staff, retailed the

remaining houses, in equal proportions, among the companies; so that,

by the time that the regiment arrived, there was nothing to be done

beyond the quarter-master's simply telling each captain, "here's a

certain number of houses for you."

Like all other places on the line of march, we found Arruda totally

deserted, and its inhabitants had fled in such a hurry, that the keys

of their house doors were the only things they carried away; so that

when we got admission, through our usual key,[1] we were not a little

gratified to find that the houses were not only regularly furnished,

but most of them had some food in the larder, and a plentiful supply

of good wines in the cellar; and, in short, that they only required a

few lodgers capable of appreciating the good things which the gods had

provided; and the deuce is in it if we were not the very folks who

could!

         [Footnote 1: Transmitting a rifle-ball through the key-hole:

         it opens every lock.]

Unfortunately for ourselves, and still more so for the proprietors, we

never dreamt of the possibility of our being able to keep possession

of the town, as we thought it a matter of course that the enemy would

attack our lines; and, as this was only an outpost, that it must fall

into their hands; so that, in conformity with the system upon which we

had all along been retreating, we destroyed every thing that we could

not use ourselves, to prevent their benefiting by it. But, when we

continued to hold the post beyond the expected period, our

indiscretion was visited on our own heads, as we had destroyed in a

day what would have made us luxurious for months. We were in hopes

that, afterwards, the enemy would have forced the post, if only for an

hour, that we might have saddled them with the mischief; but, as they

never even made the attempt, it left it in the power of ill-natured

people to say, that we had plundered one of our own towns. This was

the only instance during the war in which the light division had

reason to blush for their conduct, and even in that we had the law

martial on our side, whatever gospel law might have said against it.

The day after our arrival, Mr. Simmons and myself had the curiosity to

look into the church, which was in nowise injured, and was fitted up

in a style of magnificence becoming such a town. The body of a poor

old woman was there, lying dead before the altar. It seemed as if she

had been too infirm to join in the general flight, and had just

dragged herself to that spot by a last effort of nature, and expired.

We immediately determined, that as her's was the only body that we had

found in the town, either alive or dead, that she should have more

glory in the grave than she appeared to have enjoyed on this side of

it; and, with our united exertions, we succeeded in raising a marble

slab, which surmounted a monumental vault, and was beautifully

embellished with armorial blazonry, and, depositing the body inside,

we replaced it again carefully. If the personage to whom it belonged

happened to have a tenant of his own for it soon afterwards, he must

have been rather astonished at the manner in which the apartment was

occupied.

Those who wish a description of the lines of Torres Vedras, must read

_Napier_, or some one else who knows all about them; for my part, I

know nothing, excepting that I was told that one end of them rested on

the Tagus, and the other somewhere on the sea; and I saw, with my own

eyes, a variety of redoubts and field-works on the various hills which

stand between. This, however, I do know, that we have since kicked the

French out of more formidable looking and stronger places; and, with

all due deference be it spoken, I think that the Prince of Essling

ought to have tried his luck against them, as he could only have been

beaten by fighting, as he afterwards was without it! And if he thinks

that he would have lost as many men by trying, as he did by not

trying, he must allow me to differ in opinion with him!!!

In very warm or very wet weather it was customary to put us under

cover in the town during the day, but we were always moved back to our

bivouac, on the heights, during the night; and it was rather amusing

to observe the different notions of individual comfort, in the

selection of furniture, which officers transferred from their _town

house_ to their _no house_ on the heights. A sofa, or a mattress, one

would have thought most likely to be put in requisition; but it was

not unusual to see a full-length looking-glass preferred to either.

The post of the company to which I belonged, on the heights, was near

a redoubt, immediately behind Arruda; there was a cattle-shed near it,

which we cleaned out, and used as a sort of quarter. On turning out

from breakfast one morning, we found that the butcher had been about

to offer up the usual sacrifice of a bullock to the wants of the day;

but it had broken loose, and, in trying to regain his victim, had

caught it by the tail, which he twisted round his hand; and, when we

made our appearance, they were performing a variety of evolutions at a

gallop, to the great amusement of the soldiers; until an unlucky turn

brought them down upon our house, which had been excavated out of the

face of the hill, on which the upper part of the roof rested, and _in_

they went, heels over head, butcher, bullock, tail and all, bearing

down the whole fabric with a tremendous crash.

N.B. It was very fortunate that we happened to be outside; and very

unfortunate, as we were now obliged to remain out.

We certainly lived in _clover_ while we remained here; every thing we

saw was our own, seeing no one there who had a more legitimate claim;

and every field was a vineyard. Ultimately it was considered too much

trouble to pluck the grapes, as there were a number of poor native

thieves in the habit of coming from the rear, every day, to steal

some, so that a soldier had nothing to do but to watch one until he

was marching off with his basket full, when he would very deliberately

place his back against that of the Portuguese, and relieve him of his

load, without wasting any words about the bargain. The poor wretch

would follow the soldier to the camp, in the hope of having his basket

returned, as it generally was, when emptied.

Massena conceiving any attack upon our lines to be hopeless, as his

troops were rapidly mouldering away with sickness and want, at length

began to withdraw them nearer to the source of his supplies.

He abandoned his position, opposite to us, on the night of the 9th of

November, leaving some stuffed-straw gentlemen occupying their usual

posts. Some of them were cavalry, some infantry, and they seemed such

respectable representatives of their spectral predecessors, that, in

the haze of the following morning, we thought that they had been

joined by some well-fed ones from the rear; and it was late in the day

before we discovered the mistake and advanced in pursuit. In passing

by the edge of a mill-pond, after dark, our adjutant and his horse

tumbled in, and, as the latter had no tail to hold on by, they were

both very nearly drowned.

It was late ere we halted for the night, on the side of the road, near

to Allenquer, and I got under cover in a small house, which looked as

if it had been honoured as the head-quarters of the tailor-general of

the French army, for the floor was strewed with variegated threads,

various complexioned buttons, with particles and remnants of

_cabbage_; and, if it could not boast of the flesh and fowl of Noah's

ark, there was an abundance of the creeping things which it were to be

wished that that commander had not left behind. We marched before

daylight next morning, leaving a _rousing_ fire in the chimney, which

shortly became too small to hold it; for we had not proceeded far

before we perceived that the well-dried thatched roof had joined in

the general blaze, a circumstance which caused us no little

uneasiness, for our general, the late Major-general Robert Crawford,

had brought us up in the fear of our master; and, as he was a sort of

person who would not see a fire, of that kind, in the same _light_

that we did, I was by no means satisfied that my commission lay snug

in my pocket, until we had fairly marched it out of sight, and in

which we were aided not a little by a slight fire of another kind,

which he was required to watch with the advanced guard.

On our arrival at Vallé, on the 12th of Nov. we found the enemy behind

the Rio Maior, occupying the heights of Santarem, and exchanged some

shots with their advanced posts. In the course of the night we

experienced one of those tremendous thunderstorms which used to

precede the Wellington victories, and which induced us to expect a

general action on the following day. I had disposed myself to sleep in

a beautiful green hollow way, and, before I had time even to dream of

the effects of their heavy rains, I found myself floating most

majestically towards the river, in a fair way of becoming food for

the fishes. I ever after gave those inviting-looking spots a wide

birth, as I found that they were regular watercourses.

Next morning our division crossed the river, and commenced a false

attack on the enemy's left, with a view of making them show their

force; and it was to have been turned into a real attack, if their

position was found to be occupied by a rear guard only; but, after

keeping up a smart skirmishing-fire the greater part of the day, Lord

Wellington was satisfied that their whole army was present, we were

consequently withdrawn.

This affair terminated the campaign of 1810. Our division took

possession of the village of Vallé and its adjacents, and the rest of

the army was placed in cantonments, under whatever cover the

neighbouring country afforded.

Our battalion was stationed in some empty farm-houses, near the end of

the bridge of Santarem, which was nearly half a mile long; and our

sentries and those of the enemy were within pistol-shot of each other

on the bridge.

I do not mean to insinuate that a country is never so much at peace as

when at open war; but I do say that a soldier can no where sleep so

soundly, nor is he any where so secure from surprise, as when within

musket-shot of his enemy.

We lay four months in this situation, divided only by a rivulet,

without once exchanging shots. Every evening, at the hour

  "When bucks to dinner go,

   And cits to sup,"

it was our practice to dress for sleep: we saddled our horses, buckled

on our armour, and lay down, with the bare floor for a bed and a stone

for a pillow, ready for any thing, and reckless of every thing but the

honour of our corps and country; for I will say (to save the expense

of a trumpeter) that a more devoted set of fellows were never

associated.

We stood to our arms every morning at an hour before daybreak, and

remained there until a _grey horse_ could be seen a mile off, (which

is the military criterion by which daylight is acknowledged, and the

hour of surprise past,) when we proceeded to unharness, and to indulge

in such _luxuries_ as our toilet and our table afforded.

The Maior, as far as the bridge of Vallé, was navigable for the small

craft from Lisbon, so that our table, while we remained there, cut as

respectable a figure, as regular supplies of rice, salt fish, and

potatoes could make it; not to mention that our pig-skin was, at all

times, at least three parts full of a common red wine, which used to

be dignified by the name of _black-strap_. We had the utmost

difficulty, however, in keeping up appearances in the way of dress.

The jacket, in spite of shreds and patches, always maintained

something of the original about it; but woe befel the regimental

small-clothes, and they could only be replaced by very extraordinary

apologies, of which I remember that I had two pair at this period,

_one_ of a common brown Portuguese cloth, and the _other_, or

Sunday's pair, of black velvet. We had no women with the regiment; and

the ceremony of washing a shirt amounted to my servant's taking it by

the collar, and giving it a couple of shakes in the water, and then

hanging it up to dry. Smoothing-irons were not the fashion of the

times, and, if a fresh well-dressed aide-de-camp did occasionally come

from England, we used to stare at him with about as much respect as

Hotspur did at his "waiting gentlewoman."

The winter here was uncommonly mild. I am not the sort of person to

put myself much in the way of ice, except on a warm summer's day; but

the only inconvenience that I felt in bathing, in the middle of

December, was the quantity of leeches that used to attach themselves

to my personal supporters, obliging me to cut a few capers to shake

them off, after leaving the water.

Our piquet-post, at the bridge, became a regular lounge, for the

winter, to all manner of folks.

I used to be much amused at seeing our naval officers come up from

Lisbon riding on mules, with huge ships' spy-glasses, like

six-pounders, strapped across the backs of their saddles. Their first

question invariably was, "Who is that fellow there," (pointing to the

enemy's sentry, close to us,) and, on being told that he was a

Frenchman, "Then why the devil don't you shoot him!"

Repeated acts of civility passed between the French and us during this

tacit suspension of hostilities. The greyhounds of an officer followed

a hare, on one occasion, into their lines, and they very politely

returned them.

I was one night on piquet, at the end of the bridge, when a ball came

from the French sentry and struck the burning billet of wood round

which we were sitting, and they sent in a flag of truce, next morning,

to apologize for the accident, and to say that it had been done by a

stupid fellow of a sentry, who imagined that people were advancing

upon him. We admitted the apology, though we knew well enough that it

had been done by a malicious rather than a stupid fellow, from the

situation we occupied.

General Junot, one day reconnoitring, was severely wounded by a

sentry, and Lord Wellington, knowing that they were at that time

destitute of every thing in the shape of comfort, sent to request his

acceptance of any thing that Lisbon afforded that could be of any

service to him; but the French general was too much of a politician to

admit the want of any thing.

CHAP. V.

     Campaign of 1811 opens. Massena's Retreat. Wretched Condition of

     the Inhabitants on the Line of March. Affairs with the Enemy,

     near Pombal. Description of a Bivouac. Action near Redinha.

     Destruction of Condacia and Action near it. Burning of the

     Village of Illama, and Misery of its Inhabitants. Action at Foz

     D'Aronce. Confidential Servants with Donkey-Assistants.

The campaign of 1811 commenced on the 6th of March, by the retreat of

the enemy from Santarem.

Lord Wellington seemed to be perfectly acquainted with their

intentions, for he sent to apprize our piquets, the evening before,

that they were going off, and to desire that they should feel for them

occasionally during the night, and give the earliest information of

their having started. It was not, however, until daylight that we

were quite certain of their having gone, and our division was

instantly put in motion after them, passing through the town of

Santarem, around which their camp fires were still burning.

Santarem is finely situated, and probably had been a handsome town. I

had never seen it in prosperity, and it now looked like a city of the

plague, represented by empty dogs and empty houses; and, but for the

tolling of a convent-bell by some unseen hand, its appearance was

altogether inhuman.

We halted for the night near Pyrnes. This little town, and the few

wretched inhabitants who had been induced to remain in it under the

faithless promises of the French generals, shewed fearful signs of a

late visit from a barbarous and merciless foe. Young women were lying

in their houses brutally violated,--the streets were strewed with

broken furniture, intermixed with the putrid carcasses of murdered

peasants, mules, and donkeys, and every description of filth, that

filled the air with pestilential nausea. The few starved male

inhabitants who were stalking amid the wreck of their friends and

property, looked like so many skeletons who had been permitted to

leave their graves for the purpose of taking vengeance on their

oppressors, and the mangled body of every Frenchman who was

unfortunate or imprudent enough to stray from his column, shewed how

religiously they performed their mission.

March 8th.--We overtook their rear guard this evening, snugly put up

for the night in a little village, the name of which I do not

recollect, but a couple of six pounders, supported by a few of our

rifles, induced them to extend their walk.

March 9th.--While moving along the road this morning, we found a man,

who had deserted from us a short time before, in the uniform of a

French dragoon, with his head laid open by one of our bullets. He was

still alive, exciting any thing but sympathy among his former

associates. Towards the afternoon we found the enemy in force, on the

plain in front of Pombal, where we exchanged some shots.

March 11th.--They retired yesterday to the heights behind Pombal, with

their advanced posts occupying the town and moorish castle, which our

battalion, assisted by some Cácadores, attacked this morning, and

drove them from with considerable loss. Dispositions were then made

for a general attack on their position, but the other divisions of our

army did not arrive until too late in the evening. We bivouacked for

the night in a ploughed field, under the castle, with our sentries

within pistol shot, while it rained in torrents.

As it is possible that some of my readers might never have had the

misfortune to experience the comforts of a bivouac, and as the one

which I am now in, contains but a small quantity of sleep, I shall

devote a waking hour for their edification.

When a regiment arrives at its ground for the night, it is formed in

columns of companies, at full, half, or quarter distance, according

to the space which circumstances will permit it to occupy. The officer

commanding each company then receives his orders; and, after

communicating whatever may be necessary to the men, he desires them to

"pile arms, and make themselves comfortable for the night." Now, I

pray thee, most sanguine reader, suffer not thy fervid imagination to

transport thee into elysian fields at the pleasing exhortation

conveyed in the concluding part of the captain's address, but rest

thee contentedly in the one where it is made, which in all probability

is a ploughed one, and that, too, in a state of preparation to take a

model of thy very beautiful person, under the melting influence of a

shower of rain. The soldiers of each company have a hereditary claim

to the ground next to their arms, as have their officers to a wider

range on the same line, limited to the end of a bugle sound, if not by

a neighbouring corps, or one that is not neighbourly, for the nearer a

man is to his enemy, the nearer he likes to be to his friends. Suffice

it, that each individual knows his place as well as if he had been

born on the estate, and takes immediate possession accordingly. In a

ploughed or a stubble field there is scarcely a choice of quarters;

but, whenever there is a sprinkling of trees, it is always an object

to secure a good one, as it affords shelter from the sun by day and

the dews by night, besides being a sort of home or sign post for a

group of officers, as denoting the best place of entertainment; for

they hang their spare clothing and accoutrements among the branches,

barricade themselves on each side with their saddles, canteens, and

portmanteaus, and, with a blazing fire in their front, they indulge,

according to their various humours, in a complete state of

gipsyfication.

There are several degrees of comfort to be reckoned in a bivouac, two

of which will suffice.

The first, and worst, is to arrive at the end of a cold wet day, too

dark to see your ground, and too near the enemy to be permitted to

unpack the knapsacks or to take off accoutrements; where,

unincumbered with baggage or eatables of any kind, you have the

consolation of knowing that things are now at their worst, and that

any change must be for the better. You keep yourself alive for a

while, in collecting material to feed your fire with. You take a smell

at your empty calibash, which recalls to your remembrance the

delicious flavour of its last drop of wine. You curse your servant for

not having contrived to send you something or other from the baggage,

(though you know that it was impossible). You then damn the enemy for

being so near you, though probably, as in the present instance, it was

you that came so near them. And, finally, you take a whiff at the end

of a cigar, if you have one, and keep grumbling through the smoke,

like distant thunder through a cloud, until you tumble into a most

warlike sleep.

The next, and most common one, is, when you are not required to look

quite so sharp, and when the light baggage and provisions come in at

the heel of the regiment. If it is early in the day, the first thing

to be done is to make some tea, the most sovereign restorative for

jaded spirits. We then proceed to our various duties. The officers of

each company form a mess of themselves. One remains in camp to attend

to the duties of the regiment; a second attends to the mess: he goes

to the regimental butcher, and bespeaks a portion of the only

purchaseable commodities, hearts, livers, and kidneys; and also to see

whether he cannot _do_ the commissary out of a few extra biscuit, or a

canteen of brandy; and the remainder are gentlemen at large for the

day. But while they go hunting among the neighbouring regiments for

news, and the neighbouring houses for curiosity, they have always an

eye to their mess, and omit no opportunity of adding to the general

stock.

Dinner hour, for fear of accidents, is always the hour when dinner can

be got ready; and the 14th section of the articles of war is always

most rigidly attended to, by every good officer parading himself round

the camp-kettle at the time fixed, with his haversack in his hand. A

haversack on service is a sort of dumb waiter. The mess have a good

many things in common, but the contents of the haversack are

exclusively the property of its owner; and a well regulated one ought

never to be without the following furniture, unless when the

perishable part is consumed, in consequence of every other means of

supply having failed, viz. a couple of biscuit, a sausage, a little

tea and sugar, a knife, fork, and spoon, a tin cup, (which answers to

the names of _tea-cup_, _soup-plate_, _wine-glass_, and _tumbler_,) a

pair of socks, a piece of soap, a tooth-brush, towel, and comb, and

half a dozen cigars.

After doing justice to the dinner, if we feel in a humour for

additional society, we transfer ourselves to some neighbouring mess,

taking our cups, and whatever we mean to drink, along with us, for in

those times there is nothing to be expected from our friends beyond

the pleasure of their conversation: and, finally, we retire to rest.

To avoid inconvenience by the tossing off of the bed-clothes, each

officer has a blanket sewed up at the sides, like a sack, into which

he scrambles, and, with a green sod or a smooth stone for a pillow,

composes himself to sleep; and, under such a glorious reflecting

canopy as the heavens, it would be a subject of mortification to an

astronomer to see the celerity with which he tumbles into it. Habit

gives endurance, and fatigue is the best nightcap; no matter that the

veteran's countenance is alternately stormed with torrents of rain,

heavy dews, and hoar-frosts; no matter that his ears are assailed by a

million mouths of chattering locusts, and by some villanous donkey,

who every half hour pitches a _bray_ note, which, as a congregation of

presbyterians follow their clerk, is instantly taken up by every mule

and donkey in the army, and sent echoing from regiment to regiment,

over hill and valley, until it dies away in the distance; no matter

that the scorpion is lurking beneath his pillow, the snake winding his

slimy way by his side, and the lizard galloping over his face, wiping

his eyes with its long cold tail.

All are unheeded, until the warning voice of the brazen instrument

sounds to arms. Strange it is, that the ear which is impervious to

what would disturb the rest of the world besides, should alone be

alive to one, and that, too, a sound which is likely to sooth the

sleep of the citizens, or at most, to set them dreaming of their

loves. But so it is: the first note of the melodious bugle places the

soldier on his legs, like lightning; when, muttering a few curses at

the unseasonableness of the hour, he plants himself on his alarm post,

without knowing or caring about the cause.

Such is a bivouac; and our sleep-breaker having just sounded, the

reader will find what occurred, by reading on.

March 12th.--We stood to our arms before daylight. Finding that the

enemy had quitted the position in our front, we proceeded to follow

them; and had not gone far before we heard the usual morning's

salutation, of a couple of shots, between their rear and our advanced

guard. On driving in their outposts, we found their whole army drawn

out on the plain, near Redinha, and instantly quarrelled with them on

a large scale.

As every body has read Waverley and the Scottish Chiefs, and knows

that one battle is just like another, inasmuch as they always conclude

by one or both sides running away; and as it is nothing to me what

this or t'other regiment did, nor do I care three buttons what this or

t'other person thinks he did, I shall limit all my descriptions to

such events as immediately concerned the important personage most

interested in this history.

Be it known then, that I was one of a crowd of skirmishers who were

enabling the French ones to carry the news of their own defeat through

a thick wood, at an infantry canter, when I found myself all at once

within a few yards of one of their regiments in line, which opened

such a fire, that had I not, rifleman like, taken instant advantage of

the cover of a good fir tree, my name would have unquestionably been

transmitted to posterity by that night's gazette. And, however

opposed it may be to the usual system of drill, I will maintain, from

that day's experience, that the cleverest method of teaching a recruit

to stand at attention, is to place him behind a tree and fire balls at

him; as, had our late worthy disciplinarian, Sir David Dundas,

himself, been looking on, I think that even _he_ must have admitted

that he never saw any one stand so fiercely upright as I did behind

mine, while the balls were rapping into it as fast as if a fellow had

been hammering a nail on the opposite side, not to mention the numbers

that were whistling past, within the eighth of an inch of every part

of my body, both before and behind, particularly in the vicinity of my

nose, for which the upper part of the tree could barely afford

protection.

This was a last and a desperate stand made by their rear-guard, for

their own safety, immediately above the town, as their sole chance of

escape depended upon their being able to hold the post until the only

bridge across the river was clear of the other fugitives. But they

could not hold it long enough; for, while we were undergoing a

temporary sort of purgatory in their front, our comrades went working

round their flanks, which quickly sent them flying, with us

intermixed, at full cry, down the streets.

Whether in love or war, I have always considered that the pursuer has

a decided advantage over the pursued. In the first, he may gain and

cannot lose; but, in the latter, when one sees his enemy at full speed

before him, one has such a peculiar conscious sort of feeling that he

is on the right side, that I would not exchange places for any

consideration.

When we reached the bridge, the scene became exceedingly interesting,

for it was choked up by the fugitives who were, as usual, impeding

each other's progress, and we did not find that the application of our

swords to those nearest to us tended at all towards lessening their

disorder, for it induced about a hundred of them to rush into an

adjoining house for shelter, but that was netting regularly out of the

frying-pan into the fire, for the house happened to be really in

flames, and too hot to hold them, so that the same hundred were

quickly seen unkennelling again, half-cooked, into the very jaws of

their consumers.

John Bull, however, is not a blood-thirsty person, so that those who

could not better themselves, had only to submit to a simple transfer

of personal property to ensure his protection. We, consequently, made

many prisoners at the bridge, and followed their army about a league

beyond it, keeping up a flying fight until dark.

Just as Mr. Simmons and myself had crossed the river, and were talking

over the events of the day, not a yard asunder, there was a Portuguese

soldier in the act of passing between us, when a cannon-ball plunged

into his belly--his head doubled down to his feet, and he stood for a

moment in that posture before he rolled over a lifeless lump.

March 13th.--Arrived on the hill above Condacia in time to see that

handsome little town in flames. Every species of barbarity continued

to mark the enemy's retreating steps. They burnt every town or

village through which they passed, and if we entered a church, which,

by accident, had been spared, it was to see the murdered bodies of the

peasantry on the altar.

While Lord Wellington, with his staff, was on a hill a little in front

of us, waiting the result of a flank-movement which he had directed,

some of the enemy's sharpshooters stole, unperceived, very near to him

and began firing, but, fortunately, without effect. We immediately

detached a few of ours to meet them, but the others ran off on their

approach.

We lay by our arms until towards evening, when the enemy withdrew a

short distance behind Condacia, and we closed up to them. There was a

continued popping between the advanced posts all night.

March 14th.--Finding, at daylight, that the enemy still continued to

hold the strong ground before us, some divisions of the army were sent

to turn their flanks, while ours attacked them in front.

We drove them from one strong hold to another, over a large track of

very difficult country, mountainous and rocky, and thickly intersected

with stone walls, and were involved in one continued hard skirmish

from daylight until dark. This was the most harassing day's fighting

that I ever experienced.

Daylight left the two armies looking at each other, near the village

of Illama. The smoking roofs of the houses showed that the French had

just quitted and, as usual, set fire to it, when the company to which

I belonged was ordered on piquet there for the night. After posting

our sentries, my brother-officer and myself had the curiosity to look

into a house, and were shocked to find in it a mother and her child

dead, and the father, with three more, living, but so much reduced by

famine as to be unable to remove themselves from the flames. We

carried them into the open air, and offered the old man our few

remaining crumbs of biscuit, but he told us that he was too far gone

to benefit by them, and begged that we would give them to his

children. We lost no time in examining such of the other houses as

were yet safe to enter, and rescued many more individuals from one

horrible death, probably to reserve them for another equally so, and

more lingering, as we had nothing to give them, and marched at

daylight the following morning.

Our post that night was one of terrific grandeur. The hills behind

were in a blaze of light with the British camp-fires, as were those in

our front with the French ones. Both hills were abrupt and lofty, not

above eight hundred yards asunder, and we were in the burning village

in the valley between. The roofs of houses every instant falling in,

and the sparks and flames ascending to the clouds. The streets were

strewed with the dying and the dead,--some had been murdered and some

killed in action, which, together with the half-famished wretches whom

we had saved from burning, contributed in making it a scene which was

well-calculated to shake a stout heart, as was proved in the instance

of one of our sentries, a well known "devil-may-care" sort of fellow.

I know not what appearances the burning rafters might have reflected

on the neighbouring trees at the time, but he had not been long on his

post before he came running into the piquet, and swore, by all the

saints in the calendar, that he saw six dead Frenchmen advancing upon

him with hatchets over their shoulders!

We found by the buttons on the coats of some of the fallen foe, that

we had this day been opposed to the French ninety-fifth regiment, (the

same number as we were then,) and I cut off several of them, which I

preserved as trophies.

March 15th.--We overtook the enemy a little before dark this

afternoon. They were drawn up behind the Ceira, at Fez D'Aronce, with

their rear-guard, under Marshal Ney, imprudently posted on our side of

the river, a circumstance which Lord Wellington took immediate

advantage of; and, by a furious attack, dislodged them, in such

confusion, that they blew up the bridge before half of their own

people had time to get over. Those who were thereby left behind, not

choosing to put themselves to the pain of being shot, took to the

river, which received them so hospitably that few of them ever quitted

it. Their loss, on this occasion, must have been very great, and, we

understood, at the time, that Ney had been sent to France, in

disgrace, in consequence of it.

About the middle of the action, I observed some inexperienced light

troops rushing up a deep road-way to certain destruction, and ran to

warn them out of it, but I only arrived in time to partake the reward

of their indiscretion, for I was instantly struck with a musket-ball

above the left ear, which deposited me, at full length, in the mud.

I know not how long I lay insensible, but, on recovering, my first

_feeling_ was for my head, to ascertain if any part of it was still

standing, for it appeared to me as if nothing remained above the

mouth; but, after repeated applications of all my fingers and thumbs

to the doubtful parts, I, at length, proved to myself, satisfactorily,

that it had rather increased than diminished by the concussion; and,

jumping on my legs, and hearing, by the whistling of the balls from

both sides, that the rascals who had got me into the scrape had been

driven back and left me there, I snatched my cap, which had saved my

life, and which had been spun off my head to the distance of ten or

twelve yards, and joined them, a short distance in the rear, when one

of them, a soldier of the sixtieth, came and told me that an officer

of ours had been killed, a short time before, pointing to the spot

where I myself had fallen, and that he had tried to take his jacket

off, but that the advance of the enemy had prevented him. I told him

that I was the one that had been killed, and that I was deucedly

obliged to him for his _kind_ intentions, while I felt still more so

to the enemy for their timely advance, otherwise, I have no doubt, but

my _friend_ would have taken a fancy to my trousers also, for I found

that he had absolutely unbuttoned my jacket.

There is nothing so gratifying to frail mortality as a good dinner

when most wanted and least expected. It was perfectly dark before the

action finished, but, on going to take advantage of the fires which

the enemy had evacuated, we found their soup-kettles in full

operation, and every man's mess of biscuit lying beside them, in

stockings, as was the French mode of carrying them; and it is needless

to say how unceremoniously we proceeded to do the honours of the

feast. It ever after became a saying among the soldiers, whenever they

were on short allowance, "well, d--n my eyes, we must either fall in

with the French or the commissary to-day, I don't care which."

As our baggage was always in the rear on occasions of this kind, the

officers of each company had a Portuguese boy, in charge of a donkey,

on whom their little comforts depended. He carried our boat-cloaks and

blankets, was provided with a small pig-skin for wine, a canteen for

spirits, a small quantity of tea and sugar, a goat tied to the donkey,

and two or three dollars in his pocket, for the purchase of bread,

butter, or any other luxury which good fortune might throw in his way

in the course of the day's march. We were never very scrupulous in

exacting information regarding the source of his supplies; so that he

had nothing to dread from our wrath, unless he had the misfortune to

make his appearance empty-handed. They were singularly faithful and

intelligent in making their way to us every evening, under the most

difficult circumstances. This was the only night during Massena's

retreat in which ours failed to find us; and, wandering the greater

part of the night in the intricate maze of camp-fires, it appeared

that he slept, after all, among some dragoons, within twenty yards of

us.

CHAP. VI.

     Passage of the Mondego. Swearing to a large Amount. Two

     Prisoners, with their Two Views. Two Nuns, Two Pieces of Dough,

     and Two Kisses. A Halt. Affair near Frexedas. Arrival near

     Guarda. Murder. A stray Sentry. Battle of Sabugal. Spanish and

     Portuguese Frontiers. Blockade of Almeida. Battle-like. Current

     Value of Lord Wellington's Nose. Battle of Fuentes D'Onor. The

     Day after the Battle. A grave Remark. The _Padre's_ House.

     Retreat of the Enemy.

March 17th.--Found the enemy's rear-guard behind the Mondego, at Ponte

de Marcella, cannonaded them out of it, and then threw a temporary

bridge across the river, and followed them until dark.

The late Sir Alexander Campbell, who commanded the division next to

ours, by a wanton excess of zeal in expecting an order to follow,

would not permit any thing belonging to us to pass the bridge, for

fear of impeding the march of his troops; and, as he received no order

to march, we were thereby prevented from getting any thing whatever to

eat for the next thirty-six hours. I know not whether the curses of

individuals are recorded under such circumstances, but, if they are,

the gallant general will have found the united hearty ones of four

thousand men registered against him for that particular act.

March 19th.--We, this day, captured the aide-de-camp of General

Loison, together with his wife, who was dressed in a splendid hussar

uniform. _He_ was a Portuguese, and a traitor, and looked very like a

man who would be hanged. _She_ was a Spaniard, and very handsome, and

looked very like a woman who would get married again.

March 20th.--We had now been three days without any thing in the shape

of bread, and meat without it, after a time, becomes almost

loathsome. Hearing that we were not likely to march quite so early as

usual this morning, I started, before daylight, to a village about two

miles off, in the face of the Sierra D'Estrella, in the hopes of being

able to purchase something, as it lay out of the hostile line of

movements. On my arrival there, I found some nuns who had fled from a

neighbouring convent, waiting outside the building of the village-oven

for some Indian-corn-leaven, which they had carried there to be baked,

and, when I explained my pressing wants, two of them, very kindly,

transferred me their shares, for which I gave each a kiss and a dollar

between. They took the former as an unusual favour; but looked at the

latter, as much as to say, "our poverty, and not our will, consents."

I ran off with my half-baked dough, and joined my comrades, just as

they were getting under arms.

March 21st.--We, this day, reached the town of Mello, and had so far

outmarched our commissary that we found it necessary to wait for him;

and, in stopping to get a sight of our friends, we lost sight of our

foes, a circumstance which I was by no means sorry for, as it enabled

my shoulders, once more, to rejoice under the load of a couple of

biscuits, and made me no longer ashamed to look a cow or a sheep in

the face, now that they were not required to furnish more than their

regulated proportions of my daily food.

March 30th.--We had no difficulty in tracing the enemy, by the wrecks

of houses and the butchered peasantry; and overtook their rear-guard,

this day, busy grinding corn, in some windmills, near the village of

Frexedas. As their situation offered a fair opportunity for us to reap

the fruits of their labours, we immediately attacked and drove them

from it, and, after securing what we wanted, we withdrew again, across

the valley, to the village of Alverca, where we were not without some

reasonable expectations that they would have returned the compliment,

as we had only a few squadrons of dragoons in addition to our

battalion, and we had seen them withdraw a much stronger force from

the opposite village; but, by keeping a number of our men all night

employed in making extensive fires on the hill above, it induced them

to think that our force was much greater than it really was; and we

remained unmolested.

The only person we had hit in this affair was our adjutant, Mr.

Stewart, who was shot through the head from a window. He was a gallant

soldier, and deeply lamented. We placed his body in a chest, and

buried it in front of Colonel Beckwith's quarters.

March 31st.--At daylight, this morning, we moved to our right, along

the ridge of mountains, to Guarda: on our arrival there, we saw the

imposing spectacle of the whole of the French army winding through the

valley below, just out of gun-shot.

On taking possession of one of the villages which they had just

evacuated, we found the body of a well-dressed female, whom they had

murdered by a horrible refinement in cruelty. She had been placed upon

her back, alive, in the middle of the street, with the fragment of a

rock upon her breast, which it required four of our men to remove.

April 1st.--We overtook the enemy this afternoon, in position, behind

the Coa, at Sabugal, with their advanced posts on our side of the

river.

I was sent on piquet for the night, and had my sentries within

half-musket shot of theirs: it was wet, dark, and stormy when I went,

about midnight, to visit them, and I was not a little annoyed to find

one missing. Recollecting who he was, a steady old soldier and the

last man in the world to desert his post, I called his name aloud,

when his answering voice, followed by the discharge of a musket,

reached me nearly at the same time, from the direction of one of the

French sentries; and, after some inquiry, I found that in walking his

lonely round, in a brown study, no doubt, he had each turn taken ten

or twelve paces to his front, and only half that number to the rear,

until he had gradually worked himself up to within a few yards of his

adversary; and it would be difficult to say which of the two was most

astonished--the one at hearing a voice, or the other a shot so near,

but all my rhetoric, aided by the testimony of the serjeant and the

other sentries, could not convince the fellow that he was not on the

identical spot on which I had posted him.

April 2d.--We moved this day to the right, nearer to the bridge, and

some shots were exchanged between the piquets.

BATTLE OF SABUGAL,

April 3d, 1811.

Early this morning our division moved still farther to its right, and

our brigade led the way across a ford, which took us up to the middle;

while the balls from the enemy's advanced posts were hissing in the

water around us, we drove in their light troops and commenced a

furious assault upon their main body. Thus far all was right; but a

thick drizzling rain now came on, in consequence of which the third

division, which was to have made a simultaneous attack to our left,

missed their way, and a brigade of dragoons under Sir William Erskine,

who were to have covered our right, went the Lord knows where, but

certainly not into the fight, although they started at the same time

that we did, and had the _music_ of our rifles to guide them; and,

even the second brigade of our own division could not afford us any

support, for nearly an hour, so that we were thus unconsciously left

with about fifteen hundred men, in the very impertinent attempt to

carry a formidable position, on which stood as many thousands.

The weather, which had deprived us of the aid of our friends, favoured

us so far as to prevent the enemy from seeing the amount of our paltry

force; and the conduct of our gallant fellows, led on by Sir Sidney

Beckwith, was so truly heroic, that, incredible as it may seem, we had

the best of the fight throughout. Our first attack was met by such

overwhelming numbers, that we were forced back and followed by three

heavy columns, before which we retired slowly, and keeping up a

destructive fire, to the nearest rising ground, where we re-formed and

instantly charged their advancing masses, sending them flying at the

point of the bayonet, and entering their position along with them,

where we were assailed by fresh forces. Three times did the very same

thing occur. In our third attempt we got possession of one of their

howitzers, for which a desperate struggle was making, when we were at

the same moment charged by infantry in front and cavalry on the right,

and again compelled to fall back; but, fortunately, at this moment we

were reinforced by the arrival of the second brigade, and, with their

aid, we once more stormed their position and secured the well-earned

howitzer, while the third division came at the same time upon their

flank, and they were driven from the field in the greatest disorder.

Lord Wellington's despatch on this occasion did ample justice to Sir

Sidney Beckwith and his brave brigade. Never were troops more

judiciously or more gallantly led. Never was a leader more devotedly

followed.

In the course of the action a man of the name of Knight fell dead at

my feet, and though I heard a musket ball strike him, I could neither

find blood nor wound.

There was a little spaniel belonging to one of our officers running

about the whole time, barking at the balls, and I saw him once

smelling at a live shell, which exploded in his face without hurting

him.

The strife had scarcely ended among mortals, when it was taken up by

the elements with terrific violence. The _Scotch mist_ of the morning

had now increased to torrents, enough to cool the fever of our late

excitement, and accompanied by thunder and lightning. As a compliment

for our exertions in the fight, we were sent into the town, and had

the advantage of whatever cover its dilapidated state afforded. While

those who had not had the chance of getting broken skins, had now the

benefit of sleeping in wet ones.

On the 5th of April we entered the frontiers of Spain, and slept in a

bed for the first time since I left the ship. Passing from the

Portuguese to the Spanish frontier is about equal to taking one step

from the coal-hole into the parlour, for the cottages on the former

are reared with filth, furnished with ditto, and peopled accordingly;

whereas, those of Spain, even within the same mile, are neatly

whitewashed, both without and within, and the poorest of them can

furnish a good bed, with clean linen, and the pillow-cases neatly

adorned with pink and sky-blue ribbons, while their dear little girls

look smiling and neat as their pillow-cases.

After the action at Sabugal, the enemy retired to the neighbourhood of

Ciudad Rodrigo, without our getting another look at them, and we took

up the line of the Agueda and Axava rivers, for the blockade of the

fortress of Almeida, in which they had left a garrison indifferently

provisioned.

The garrison had no means of providing for their cattle, but by

turning them out to graze upon the glacis; and we sent a few of our

rifles to practice against them, which very soon reduced them to salt

provisions.

Towards the end of April the French army began to assemble on the

opposite bank of the Agueda to attempt the relief of the garrison, while

ours began to assemble in position at Fuentes D'Onor to dispute it.

Our division still continued to hold the same line of outposts, and

had several sharp affairs between the piquets at the bridge of

Marialva.

As a general action seemed now to be inevitable, we anxiously longed

for the return of Lord Wellington, who had been suddenly called to the

corps of the army under Marshal Beresford, near Badajos, as we would

rather see his long nose in the fight than a reinforcement of ten

thousand men any day. Indeed, there was a charm not only about himself

but all connected with him, for which no odds could compensate. The

known abilities of Sir George Murray, the gallant bearing of the

lamented Pakenham, of Lord Fitzroy Somerset, of the present Duke of

Richmond, Sir Colin Campbell, with others, the flower of our young

nobility and gentry, who, under the auspices of such a chief, seemed

always a group attendant on victory; and I'll venture to say that

there was not a bosom in that army that did not beat more lightly,

when we heard the joyful news of his arrival, the day before the

enemy's advance.

He had ordered us not to dispute the passage of the river, so that

when the French army advanced, on the morning of the 3d of May, we

retired slowly before them, across the plains of Espeja, and drew into

the position, where the whole army was now assembled. Our division

took post in reserve, in the left centre. Towards evening, the enemy

made a fierce attack on the Village of Fuentes, but were repulsed with

loss.

On the 4th, both armies looked at each other all day without

exchanging shots.

BATTLE OF FUENTES D'ONOR,

May 5th, 1811.

The day began to dawn, this fine May morning, with a rattling fire of

musketry on the extreme right of our position, which the enemy had

attacked, and to which point our division was rapidly moved.

Our battalion was thrown into a wood, a little to the left and front

of the division engaged, and was instantly warmly opposed to the

French skirmishers; in the course of which I was struck with a

musket-ball on the left breast, which made me stagger a yard or two

backward, and, as I felt no pain, I concluded that I was dangerously

wounded; but it turned out to be owing to my not being hurt. While our

operations here were confined to a tame skirmish, and our view to the

oaks with which we were mingled, we found, by the evidence of our

ears, that the division which we had come to support was involved in a

more serious onset, for _there_ was the successive rattle of

artillery, the wild hurrah of charging squadrons, and the repulsing

volley of musketry; until Lord Wellington, finding his right too much

extended, directed _that_ division to fall back behind the small river

Touronne, and ours to join the main body of the army. The execution of

our movement presented a magnificent military spectacle, as the plain,

between us and the right of the army, was by this time in possession

of the French cavalry, and, while we were retiring through it with the

order and precision of a common field-day, they kept dancing around

us, and every instant threatening a charge, without daring to execute

it.

We took up our new position at a right angle with the then right of

the British line, on which our left rested, and with our right on the

Touronne. The enemy followed our movement with a heavy column of

infantry; but, when they came near enough to exchange shots, they did

not seem to like our looks, as we occupied a low ridge of broken

rocks, against which even a rat could scarcely have hoped to advance

alive; and they again fell back, and opening a tremendous fire of

artillery, which was returned by a battery of our guns. In the course

of a short time, seeing no further demonstration against this part of

the position, our division was withdrawn, and placed in reserve in

rear of the centre.

The battle continued to rage with fury in and about the village,

whilst we were lying by our arms under a burning hot sun, some stray

cannon-shot passing over and about us, whose progress we watched for

want of other employment. One of them bounded along in the direction

of an _amateur_, whom we had for some time been observing securely

placed, as he imagined, behind a piece of rock, which stood about five

feet above the ground, and over which nothing but his head was shown,

sheltered from the sun by an umbrella. The shot in question touched

the ground three or four times between us and him; he saw it

coming--lowered his umbrella, and withdrew his head. Its expiring

bound carried it into the very spot where he had that instant

disappeared. I hope he was not hurt; but the thing looked so

ridiculous that it excited a shout of laughter, and we saw no more of

him.

A little before dusk, in the evening, our battalion was ordered

forward to relieve the troops engaged in the village, part of which

still remained in possession of the enemy, and I saw, by the mixed

nature of the dead, in every part of the streets, that it had been

successively in possession of both sides. The firing ceased with the

daylight, and I was sent, with a section of men, in charge of one of

the streets for the night. There was a wounded Serjeant of highlanders

lying on my post. A ball had passed through the back part of his head,

from which the brain was oozing, and his only sign of life was a

convulsive hiccough every two or three seconds. I sent for a medical

friend to look at him, who told me that he could not survive; I then

got a mattress from the nearest house, placed the poor fellow on it,

and made use of one corner as a pillow for myself, on which, after

the fatigues of the day, and though called occasionally to visit my

sentries, I slept most soundly. The highlander died in the course of

the night.

When we stood to our arms, at daybreak next morning, we found the

enemy busy throwing up a six-gun battery, immediately in front of our

company's post, and we immediately set to work, with our whole hearts

and souls, and placed a wall, about twelve feet thick, between us,

which, no doubt, still remains there in the same garden, as a monument

of what can be effected, in a few minutes, by a hundred modern men,

when their personal safety is concerned; not but that the proprietor,

in the midst of his admiration, would rather see a good bed of garlic

on the spot, manured with the bodies of the architects.

When the sun began to shine on the pacific disposition of the enemy,

we proceeded to consign the dead to their last earthly mansions,

giving every Englishman a grave to himself, and putting as many

Frenchmen into one as it could conveniently accommodate. Whilst in

the superintendence of this melancholy duty, and ruminating on the

words of the poet:--

  "There's not a form of all that lie

     Thus ghastly, wild and bare,

   Tost, bleeding, in the stormy sky,

     Black in the burning air,

   But to his knee some infant clung,

   But on his heart some fond heart hung!"

I was grieved to think that the souls of deceased warriors should be

so selfish as to take to flight in their regimentals, for I never saw

the body of one with a rag on after battle.

The day after one of those negative sort of victories is always one of

intense interest. The movements on each side are most jealously

watched, and each side is diligently occupied in strengthening such

points as the fight of the preceding day had proved to be the most

vulnerable.

Lord Wellington was too deficient in his cavalry force to justify his

following up his victory; and the enemy, on their parts, had been too

roughly handled, in their last attempt, to think of repeating the

experiment; so that, during the next two days, though both armies

continued to hold the same ground, there was scarcely a shot

exchanged.

They had made a few prisoners, chiefly guardsmen and highlanders, whom

they marched past the front of our position, in the most ostentatious

way, on the forenoon of the 6th; and, the day following, a number of

their regiments were paraded in the most imposing manner for review.

They looked uncommonly well, and we were proud to think that we had

beaten such fine-looking fellows so lately!

Our regiment had been so long and so often quartered in Fuentes that

it was like fighting for our fire-sides. The _Padre's_ house stood at

the top of the town. He was an old friend of ours, and an old fool,

for he would not leave his house until it was too late to take

anything with him; but, curious enough, although it had been

repeatedly in the possession of both sides, and plundered, no doubt,

by many expert artists, yet none of them thought of looking so high as

the garret, which happened to be the repository of his money and

provisions. He came to us the day after the battle, weeping over his

supposed loss, like a sensitive Christian, and I accompanied him to

the house, to see whether there was not some consolation remaining for

him; but, when he found his treasure safe, he could scarcely bear its

restoration with becoming gravity. I helped him to carry off his bag

of dollars, and he returned the compliment with a leg of mutton.

The French army retired on the night of the 7th, leaving Almeida to

its fate; but, by an extraordinary piece of luck, the garrison made

their escape the night after, in consequence of some mistake or

miscarriage of an order, which prevented a British regiment from

occupying the post intended for it.

May 8th.--We advanced this morning, and occupied our former post at

Espeja, with some hopes of remaining quiet for a few days; but the

alarm sounding at daylight on the following morning, we took post on

the hill, in front of the village. It turned out to be only a patrole

of French cavalry, who retired on receiving a few shots from our

piquets, and we saw no more of them for a considerable time.

CHAP. VII.

     March to Estremadura. At Soito, growing Accommodations for Man

     and Beast. British Taste displayed by Portuguese Wolves. False

     Alarm. Luxuries of Roquingo Camp. A Chaplain of the Forces.

     Return towards the North. Quarters near Castello de Vide.

     Blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo. Village of Atalya; Fleas abundant;

     Food scarce. Advance of the French Army. Affairs near Guinaldo.

     Our Minister administered to. An unexpected Visit from our

     General and his Followers. End of the Campaign of 1811. Winter

     Quarters.

Lord Wellington, soon after the battle of Fuentes, was again called

into Estremadura, to superintend the operations of the corps of the

army under Marshal Beresford, who had, in the mean time, fought the

battle of Albuera, and laid siege to Badajos. In the beginning of

June our division was ordered thither also, to be in readiness to aid

his operations. We halted one night at the village of Soito, where

there are a great many chestnut trees of very extraordinary

dimensions; the outside of the trunk keeps growing as the inside

decays. I was one of a party of four persons who dined inside of one,

and I saw two or three horses put up in several others.

We halted, also, one night on the banks of the Coa, near Sabugal, and

visited our late field of battle. We found that the dead had been

nearly all torn from their graves, and devoured by wolves, who are in

great force in that wild mountainous district, and shew very little

respect either for man or beast. They seldom, indeed, attack a man;

but if one happens to tie his horse to a tree, and leaves him

unattended, for a short time, he must not be surprised if he finds, on

his return, that he has parted with a good _rump steak_; _that_ is the

piece that they always prefer; and it is, therefore, clear to me,

that the first of the wolves must have been reared in England!

We experienced, in the course of this very dark night, one of those

ridiculous false alarms which will sometimes happen in the best

organized body. Some bullocks strayed, by accident, amongst the piles

of arms, the falling clatter of which, frightened them so much that

they went galloping over the sleeping soldiers. The officers'

baggage-horses broke from their _moorings_, and joined in the general

charge; and a cry immediately arose, that it was the French cavalry.

The different regiments stood to their arms, and formed squares,

looking as sharp as thunder for something to fire at; and it was a

considerable time before the cause of the _row_ could be traced. The

different followers of the army, in the mean time, were scampering off

to the rear, spreading the most frightful reports. One woman of the

52d succeeded in getting three leagues off before daylight, and swore,

"that, as God was her judge, she did not leave her regiment until she

saw the last man of them cut to pieces!!!"

On our arrival near Elvas, we found that Marshal Beresford had raised

the siege of Badajos; and we were, therefore, encamped on the river

Caya, near Roquingo. This was a sandy unsheltered district; and the

weather was so excessively hot, that we had no enjoyment, but that of

living three parts of the day up to the neck in a pool of water.

Up to this period it had been a matter of no small difficulty to

ascertain, at any time, the day of the week; that of the month was

altogether out of the question, and could only be reckoned by counting

back to the date of the last battle; but our division was here joined

by a chaplain, whose duty it was to remind us of these things. He

might have been a very good man, but he was not prepossessing, either

in his appearance or manners. I remember, the first Sunday after his

arrival, the troops were paraded for divine service, and had been some

time waiting in square, when he at length rode into the centre of it,

with his tall, lank, ungainly figure, mounted on a starved, untrimmed,

unfurnished horse, and followed by a Portuguese boy, with his

canonicals and prayer-books on the back of a mule, with a hay-bridle,

and having, by way of clothing, about half a pair of straw breeches.

This spiritual comforter was the least calculated of any one that I

ever saw to excite devotion in the minds of men, who had seen nothing

in the shape of a divine for a year or two.

In the beginning of August we began to retrace our steps towards the

north. We halted a few days in Portalegré, and a few more at Castello

de Vide.

The latter place is surrounded by extensive gardens, belonging to the

richer citizens; in each of which there is a small summer-house,

containing one or two apartments, in which the proprietor, as I can

testify, may have the enjoyment of being fed upon by a more healthy

and better appetized flea, than is to be met with in town houses in

general.

These _quintas_ fell to the lot of our battalion; and though their

beds, on that account, had not much sleep in them, yet, as those who

preferred the voice of the nightingale in a bed of cabbages, to the

pinch of a flea in a bed of feathers, had the alternative at their

option; I enjoyed my sojourn there very much. Each garden had a

bathing tank, with a plentiful supply of water, which at that season

was really a luxury; and they abounded in choice fruits. I there

formed an attachment to a mulberry-tree, which is still fondly

cherished in my remembrance.

We reached the scene of our former operations, in the north, towards

the end of August.

The French had advanced and blockaded Almeida, during our absence, but

they retired again on our approach, and we took up a more advanced

position than before, for the blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo.

Our battalion occupied Atalya, a little village at the foot of the

Sierra de Gata, and in front of the River Vadilla. On taking

possession of my quarter, the people showed me an outhouse, which,

they said, I might use as a stable, and I took my horse into it, but,

seeing the floor strewed with what appeared to be a small brown seed,

heaps of which lay in each corner, as if shovelled together in

readiness to take to market, I took up a handful, out of curiosity,

and, truly, they were a curiosity, for I found that they were all

regular fleas, and that they were proceeding to eat both me and my

horse, without the smallest ceremony. I rushed out of the place, and

knocked them down by fistfuls, and never yet could comprehend the

cause of their congregating together in such a place.

This neighbourhood had been so long the theatre of war, and

alternately forced to supply both armies, that the inhabitants, at

length, began to dread starvation themselves, and concealed, for their

private use, all that remained to them; so that, although they were

bountiful in their assurances of good wishes, it was impossible to

extract a loaf of their good bread, of which we were so wildly in want

that we were obliged to conceal patroles on the different roads and

footpaths, for many miles around, to search the peasants passing

between the different villages, giving them an order on the commissary

for whatever we took from them; and we were not too proud to take even

a few potatoes out of an old woman's basket.

On one occasion, when some of us were out shooting, we discovered

about twenty hives of bees, in the face of a glen, concealed among the

gumcestus, and, stopping up the mouth of one them, we carried it home

on our shoulders, bees and all, and continued to levy contributions on

the _depot_ as long as we remained there.

Towards the end of September, the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo began to

get on such "short commons" that _Marmont_, who had succeeded

_Massena_, in the command of the French army, found it necessary to

assemble the whole of his forces, to enable him to throw provisions

into it.

Lord Wellington was still pursuing his defensive system, and did not

attempt to oppose him; but Marmont, after having effected his object,

thought that he might as well take that opportunity of beating up our

quarters, in return for the trouble we had given him; and,

accordingly, on the morning of the 25th, he attacked a brigade of the

third division, stationed at El Bedon, which, after a brilliant

defence and retreat, conducted him opposite to the British position,

in front of Fuente Guinaldo. He busied himself, the whole of the

following day, in bringing up his troops for the attack. Our division,

in the mean time, remained on the banks of the Vadillo, and had nearly

been cut off, through the obstinacy of General Crawford, who did not

choose to obey an order he received to retire the day before; but we,

nevertheless, succeeded in joining the army, by a circuitous route, on

the afternoon of the 26th; and, the whole of both armies being now

assembled, we considered a battle on the morrow as inevitable.

Lord Wellington, however, was not disposed to accommodate them on this

occasion; for, about the middle of the night, we received an order to

stand to our arms, with as little noise as possible, and to commence

retiring, the rest of the army having been already withdrawn, unknown

to us; an instance of the rapidity and uncertainty of our movements

which proved fatal to the liberty of several amateurs and followers of

the army, who, seeing an army of sixty thousand men lying asleep

around their camp-fires, at ten o'clock at night, naturally concluded

that they might safely indulge in a bed in the village behind, until

daylight, without the risk of being caught napping; but, long ere that

time, they found themselves on the high road to Ciudad Rodrigo, in the

rude grasp of an enemy. Amongst others, was the chaplain of our

division, whose outward man, as I have already said, conveyed no very

exalted notion of the respectability of his profession, and who was

treated with greater indignity than usually fell to the lot of

prisoners, for, after keeping him a couple of days, and finding that,

however gifted he might have been in spiritual lore, he was as

ignorant as Dominie Sampson on military matters; and, conceiving good

provisions to be thrown away upon him, they stripped him nearly naked

and dismissed him, like the barber in Gil Blas, with a kick in the

breech, and sent him in to us in a woful state.

September 27th.--General Crawford remained behind us this morning,

with a troop of dragoons, to reconnoitre; and, while we were marching

carelessly along the road, he and his dragoons galloped right into our

column, with a cloud of French ones at his heels. Luckily, the ground

was in our favour; and, dispersing our men among the broken rocks, on

both sides of the road, we sent them back somewhat faster than they

came on. They were, however, soon replaced by their infantry, with

whom we continued in an uninteresting skirmish all day. There was some

sharp firing, the whole of the afternoon, to our left; and we retired,

in the evening, to Soito.

This affair terminated the campaign of 1811, as the enemy retired the

same night, and we advanced next day to resume the blockade of

Rodrigo; and were suffered to remain quietly in cantonments until the

commencement of a new year.

In every interval between our active services, we indulged in all

manner of childish trick and amusement, with an avidity and delight of

which it is impossible to convey an adequate idea. We lived united, as

men always are who are daily staring death in the face on the same

side, and who, caring little about it, look upon each new day added to

their lives as one more to rejoice in.

We invited the villagers, every evening, to a dance at our quarters

alternately. A Spanish peasant girl has an address about her which I

have never met with in the same class of any other country; and she at

once enters into society with the ease and confidence of one who had

been accustomed to it all her life. We used to flourish away at the

bolero, fandango, and waltz, and wound up early in the evening with a

supper of roasted chestnuts.

Our village _belles_, as already stated, made themselves perfectly at

home in our society, and we, too, should have enjoyed theirs for a

season; but, when month after month, and year after year, continued to

roll along, without producing any change, we found that the cherry

cheek and sparkling eye of rustic beauty furnished but a very poor

apology for the illuminated portion of Nature's fairest works, and

ardently longed for an opportunity of once more feasting our eyes on a

_lady_.

In the month of December, we heard that the chief magistrate of

Rodrigo, with whom we were personally acquainted, had, with his

daughter and two other young ladies, taken shelter in Robledillo, a

little town in the Sierra de Gata, which, being within our range,

presented an attraction not to be resisted.

Half-a-dozen of us immediately resolved ourselves into a committee of

ways and means. We had six months' pay due to us; so that the fandango

might have been danced in either of our pockets without the smallest

risk; but we had this consolation for our poverty, that there was

nothing to be bought, even if we had the means. Our only resource,

therefore, was to lighten the cares of such of our brother-officers as

were fortunate enough to have any thing to lose; and, at this moment

of doubt and difficulty, a small flock of turkeys, belonging to our

major, presented themselves, most imprudently, grazing opposite the

windows of our council-chamber, two of which were instantly committed

to the bottom of a sack, as a foundation to go upon. One of our spies,

soon after, apprehended a sheep, the property of another officer,

which was committed to the same place; and, getting the commissary to

advance us a few extra loaves of bread, some ration beef, and a

pig-skin full of wine, we placed a servant on a mule, with the whole

concern tackled to him, and proceeded on our journey.

In passing over the mountain, we saw a wild boar bowling along, in the

midst of a snow-storm, and, voting them fitting companions, we

suffered him to pass, (particularly as he did not come within shot).

On our arrival at Robledillo, we met with the most cordial reception

from the old magistrate; who, entering into the spirit of our visit,

provided us with quarters, and filled our room in the evening with

every body worth seeing in the place. We were malicious enough, by way

of amusement, to introduce a variety of absurd pastimes, under the

pretence of their being English, and which, by virtue thereof, were

implicitly adopted. We, therefore, passed a regular romping evening;

and, at a late hour, having conducted the ladies to their homes, some

friars, who were of the party, very kindly, intended doing us the same

favour, and, with that view, had begun to precede us with their

lanterns, but, in the frolic of the moment, we set upon them with

snow-balls, some of which struck upon their broad shoulders, while

others fizzed against their fiery faces, and, in their astonishment

and alarm, all sanctimony was forgotten; their oaths flew as thick as

our snow-balls, while they ran ducking their heads and dousing their

lights, for better concealment; but we, nevertheless, persevered until

we had pelted each to his own home.

We were, afterwards, afraid that we had carried the joke rather too

far, and entertained some doubts as to the propriety of holding our

quarters for another day; but they set our minds at rest on that

point, by paying us an early visit in the morning, and seemed to enjoy

the joke in a manner that we could not have expected from the gravity

of their looks.

We passed two more days much in the same manner, and, on the third,

returned to our cantonments, and found that our division had moved,

during our absence, into some villages nearer to Ciudad Rodrigo,

preparatory to the siege of that place.

On inquiry, we found that we had never been suspected for the

_abduction_ of the sheep and turkeys, but that the blame, on the

contrary, had been attached to the poor soldiers, whose soup had been

tasted every day to see if it savoured of such dainties. The

proprietor of the turkeys was so particularly indignant that we

thought it prudent not to acknowledge ourselves as the culprits until

some time afterwards, when, as one of our party happened to be killed

in action, we, very uncharitably, put the whole of it on his

shoulders.

CHAP. VIII.

     Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. The Garrison of an Outwork relieved.

     Spending an Evening abroad. A Musical Study. An Addition to Soup.

     A short Cut. Storming of the Town. A sweeping Clause. Advantages

     of leading a Storming Party. Looking for a Customer.

     Disadvantages of being a stormed Party. Confusion of all Parties.

     A waking Dream. Death of General Crawford. Accident. Deaths.

SIEGE OF CIUDAD RODRIGO,

January 8th, 1812.

The campaign of 1812 commenced with the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, which

was invested by our division on the 8th of January.

There was a smartish frost, with some snow on the ground; and, when we

arrived opposite the fortress, about midday, the garrison did not

appear to think that we were in earnest, for a number of their

officers came out, under the shelter of a stone-wall, within half

musket-shot, and amused themselves in saluting and bowing to us in

ridicule; but, ere the day was done, some of them had occasion to wear

the laugh on the opposite side of the countenance.

We lay by our arms until dark, when a party, consisting of a hundred

volunteers from each regiment, under Colonel Colborne, of the

fifty-second, stormed and carried the Fort of St. Francisco, after a

short sharp action, in which the whole of its garrison were taken or

destroyed. The officer who commanded it was a chattering little

fellow, and acknowledged himself to have been one of our saluting

friends of the morning. He kept, incessantly, repeating a few words of

English which he had picked up during the assault, and the only ones,

I fancy, that were spoken, viz. "dem eyes, b--t eyes!" and, in

demanding the meaning of them, he required that we should, also,

explain why we stormed a place without first besieging it; for, he

said, that another officer would have relieved him of his charge at

daylight, had _we_ not _relieved_ him of it sooner.

The enemy had calculated that this outwork would have kept us at bay

for a fortnight or three weeks; whereas, its capture, the first night,

enabled us to break ground at once, within breaching distance of the

walls of the town. They kept up a very heavy fire the whole night on

the working parties; but, as they aimed at random, we did not suffer

much; and made such good use of our time that, when daylight enabled

them to see what we were doing, we had dug ourselves under tolerable

cover.

In addition to ours, the first, third, and fourth divisions were

employed in the siege. Each took the duties for twenty-four hours

alternately, and returned to their cantonments during the interval.

We were relieved by the first division, under Sir Thomas Graham, on

the morning of the 9th, and marched to our quarters.

Jan. 12th.--At ten o'clock this morning we resumed the duties of the

siege. It still continued to be dry frosty weather; and, as we were

obliged to ford the Agueda, up to the middle, every man carried a pair

of iced breeches into the trenches with him.

My turn of duty did not arrive until eight in the evening, when I was

ordered to take thirty men with shovels to dig holes for ourselves, as

near as possible to the walls, for the delectable amusement of firing

at the embrasures for the remainder of the night. The enemy threw

frequent fire-balls among us, to see where we were; but, as we always

lay snug until their blaze was extinguished, they were not much the

wiser, except by finding, from having some one popt off from their

guns every instant, that they had got some neighbours whom they would

have been glad to get rid of.

We were relieved as usual at ten next morning, and returned to our

cantonments.

January 16th.--Entered on our third day's duty, and found the

breaching batteries in full operation, and our approaches close to the

walls on every side. When we arrived on the ground I was sent to take

command of the highland company, which we had at that time in the

regiment, and which was with the left wing, under Colonel Cameron. I

found them on piquet, between the right of the trenches and the river,

half of them posted at a mud-cottage, and the other half in a ruined

convent, close under the walls. It was a very tolerable post when at

it; but it is no joke travelling by daylight up to within a stone's

throw of a wall, on which there is a parcel of fellows who have no

other amusement but to fire at every body they see.

We could not show our noses at any point without being fired at; but,

as we were merely posted there to protect the right flank of the

trenches from any sortie, we did not fire at them, and kept as quiet

as could be, considering the deadly blast that was blowing around us.

There are few situations in life where something cannot be learnt, and

I, myself, stand indebted to my twenty-four hours' residence there,

for a more correct knowledge of martial sounds than in the study of my

whole life time besides. They must be an unmusical pair of ears that

cannot inform the wearer whither a cannon or a musket played last, but

the various _notes_, emanating from their respective mouths, admit of

nice distinctions. My party was too small, and too well sheltered to

repay the enemy for the expense of shells and round shot; but the

quantity of grape and musketry aimed at our particular heads, made a

good concert of first and second whistles, while the more sonorous

voice of the round shot, travelling to our friends on the left, acted

as a thorough bass; and there was not a shell, that passed over us to

the trenches, that did not send back a fragment among us as soon as it

burst, as if to gratify a curiosity that I was far from expressing.

We went into the cottage soon after dark, to partake of something that

had been prepared for dinner; and, when in the middle of it, a round

shot passed through both walls, immediately over our heads, and

garnished the soup with a greater quantity of our parent earth than

was quite palatable.

We were relieved, as usual, by the first division, at ten next

morning; and, to avoid as much as possible the destructive fire from

the walls, they sent forward only three or four men at a time, and we

sent ours away in the same proportions.

Every thing is by comparison in this world, and it is curious to

observe how men's feelings change with circumstances. In cool blood a

man would rather go a little out of his way than expose himself to

unnecessary danger; but we found, this morning, that by crossing the

river where we then were, and running the gauntlet for a mile, exposed

to the fire of two pieces of artillery, that we should be saved the

distance of two or three miles in returning to our quarters. After

coming out of such a _furnace_ as we had been frying in, the other

fire was not considered a fire at all, and passed without a moment's

hesitation.

STORMING OF CIUDAD RODRIGO.

January 19th, 1812.--We moved to the scene of operations, about two

o'clock this afternoon; and, as it was a day before our regular turn,

we concluded that we were called there to lend a hand in finishing the

job we had begun so well; nor were we disappointed, for we found that

two practicable breaches had been effected, and that the place was to

be stormed in the evening by the third and light divisions, the former

by the right breach, and the latter by the left, while some Portuguese

troops were to attempt an escalade on the opposite sides of the town.

About eight o'clock in the evening our division was accordingly formed

for the assault, behind a convent, near the left breach, in the

following order:--viz.

     1st. Four companies of our battalion, under Colonel Cameron, to

     line the crest of the glacis, and fire upon the ramparts.

     2d. Some companies of Portuguese, carrying bags filled with hay

     and straw, for throwing into the ditch, to facilitate the passage

     of the storming party.

     3d. The _forlorn hope_, consisting of an officer and twenty-five

     volunteers.

     4th. The _storming party_, consisting of three officers and one

     hundred volunteers from each regiment, the officers from ours

     were Captain Mitchell, Mr. Johnstone, and myself, and the whole

     under the command of Major Napier, of the fifty-second.

     5th. The main body of the division, under General Crawford, with

     one brigade, under Major-General Vandeleur, and the other under

     Colonel Barnard.

At a given signal the different columns advanced to the assault; the

night was tolerably clear, and the enemy evidently expected us; for,

as soon as we turned the corner of the convent-wall, the space

between us and the breach became one blaze of light with their

fire-balls, which, while they lighted us on to glory, lightened not a

few of their lives and limbs; for the whole glacis was in consequence

swept by a well directed fire of grape and musketry, and they are the

devil's own brooms; but our gallant fellows walked through it, to the

point of attack, with the most determined steadiness, excepting the

Portuguese sack-bearers, most of whom lay down behind their bags, to

wait the result, while the few that were thrown into the ditch looked

so like dead bodies, that, when I leapt into it, I tried to avoid

them.

The advantage of being on a storming party is considered as giving the

prior claim to be _put out of pain_, for they receive the first fire,

which is generally the best, not to mention that they are also

expected to receive the earliest salutation from the beams of timber,

hand-grenades, and other missiles, which the garrison are generally

prepared to transfer from the top of the wall, to the tops of the

heads of their foremost visitors. But I cannot say that I, myself,

experienced any such preference, for every ball has a considerable

distance to travel, and I have generally found them equally ready to

pick up their man at the end, as at the beginning of their flight;

luckily, too, the other preparations cannot always be accommodated to

the moment, so that, on the whole, the _odds_ are pretty _even_, that,

all concerned come in for an equal share of whatever happens to be

going on.

We had some difficulty at first in finding the breach, as we had

entered the ditch opposite to a ravelin, which we mistook for a

bastion. I tried first one side of it and then the other, and seeing

one corner of it a good deal battered, with a ladder placed against

it, I concluded that it must be the breach, and calling to the

soldiers near me, to follow. I mounted with the most ferocious intent,

carrying a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other; but, when I

got up, I found nobody to fight with, except two of our own men, who

were already laid dead across the top of the ladder. I saw, in a

moment, that I had got into the wrong box, and was about to descend

again, when I heard a shout from the opposite side, that the breach

was there; and, moving in that direction, I dropped myself from the

ravelin, and landed in the ditch, opposite to the foot of the breach,

where I found the head of the storming party just beginning to fight

their way into it. The combat was of short duration, and, in less than

half an hour from the commencement of the attack, the place was in our

possession.

After carrying the breach, we met with no further opposition, and

moved round the ramparts to see that they were perfectly clear of the

enemy, previous to entering the town. I was fortunate enough to take

the left-hand circuit, by accident, and thereby escaped the fate which

befel a great portion of those who went to the right, and who were

blown up, along with some of the third division, by the accidental

explosion of a magazine.

I was highly amused, in moving round the ramparts, to find some of the

Portuguese troops just commencing their escalade, on the opposite

side, near the bridge, in ignorance of the place having already

fallen. Gallantly headed by their officers, they had got some ladders

placed against the wall, while about two thousand voices from the rear

were cheering, with all their might, for mutual encouragement; and,

like most other troops, under similar circumstances, it appeared to me

that their feet and their tongues went at a more equal pace after we

gave them the hint. On going a little further, we came opposite to the

ravelin, which had been my chief annoyance during my last days'

piquet. It was still crowded by the enemy, who had now thrown down

their arms, and endeavoured to excite our pity by virtue of their

being "Pauvres Italianos;" but our men had, somehow, imbibed a

horrible antipathy to the Italians, and every appeal they made in that

name was invariably answered with,--"You're Italians, are you? then,

d--n you, here's a shot for you;" and the action instantly followed

the word.

A town taken by storm presents a frightful scene of outrage. The

soldiers no sooner obtain possession of it, than they think themselves

at liberty to do what they please. It is enough for them that there

_had_ been an enemy on the ramparts; and, without considering that the

poor inhabitants may, nevertheless, be friends and allies, they, in

the first moment of excitement, all share one common fate; and nothing

but the most extraordinary exertions on the part of the officers can

bring them back to a sense of their duty.

We continued our course round the ramparts until we met the head of

the column which had gone by the right, and then descended into the

town. At the entrance of the first street, a French officer came out

of a door and claimed my protection, giving me his sword. He told me

that there was another officer in the same house who was afraid to

venture out, and entreated that I would go in for him. I, accordingly,

followed him up to the landing-place of a dark stair, and, while he

was calling to his friend, by name, to come down, "as there was an

English officer present who would protect him," a violent screaming

broke through a door at my elbow. I pushed it open, and found the

landlady struggling with an English soldier, whom I immediately

transferred to the bottom of the stair head foremost. The French

officer had followed me in at the door, and was so astonished at all

he saw, that he held up his hands, turned up the whites of his eyes,

and resolved himself into a state of the most eloquent silence. When

he did recover the use of his tongue, it was to recommend his landlady

to my notice, as the most amiable woman in existence. She, on her

part, professed the most unbounded gratitude, and entreated that I

would make her house my home forever; but, when I called upon her, a

few days after, she denied having ever seen me before, and stuck to it

most religiously.

As the other officer could not be found, I descended into the street

again with my prisoner; and, finding the current of soldiers setting

towards the centre of the town, I followed the stream, which conducted

me into the great square, on one side of which the late garrison were

drawn up as prisoners, and the rest of it was filled with British and

Portuguese intermixed, without any order or regularity. I had been

there but a very short time, when they all commenced firing, without

any ostensible cause; some fired in at the doors and windows, some at

the roofs of houses, and others at the clouds; and, at last, some

heads began to be blown from their shoulders in the general hurricane,

when the voice of Sir Thomas Picton, with the power of twenty

trumpets, began to proclaim damnation to every body, while Colonel

Barnard, Colonel Cameron, and some other active officers, were

carrying it into effect with a strong hand; for, seizing the broken

barrels of muskets, which were lying about in great abundance, they

belaboured every fellow, most unmercifully, about the head who

attempted either to load or fire, and finally succeeded in reducing

them to order. In the midst of the scuffle, however, three of the

houses in the square were set on fire; and the confusion was such that

nothing could be done to save them; but, by the extraordinary

exertions of Colonel Barnard, during the whole of the night, the

flames were prevented from communicating to the adjoining buildings.

We succeeded in getting a great portion of our battalion together by

one o'clock in the morning, and withdrew with them to the ramparts,

where we lay by our arms until daylight.

There is nothing in this life half so enviable as the feelings of a

soldier after a victory. Previous to a battle, there is a certain sort

of something that pervades the mind which is not easily defined; it is

neither akin to joy or fear, and, probably, _anxiety_ may be nearer to

it than any other word in the dictionary: but, when the battle is

over, and crowned with victory, he finds himself elevated for awhile

into the regions of absolute bliss! It had ever been the summit of my

ambition to attain a post at the head of a storming party:--my wish

had now been accomplished, and gloriously ended; and I do think that,

after all was over, and our men laid asleep on the ramparts, that I

strutted about as important a personage, in my own opinion, as ever

trod the face of the earth; and, had the ghost of the renowned

Jack-the-giant-killer itself passed that way at the time, I'll venture

to say, that I would have given it a kick in the breech without the

smallest ceremony. But, as the sun began to rise, I began to fall from

the heroics; and, when he showed his face, I took a look at my own,

and found that I was too unclean a spirit to worship, for I was

covered with mud and dirt, with the greater part of my dress torn to

rags.

The fifth division, which had not been employed in the siege, marched

in, and took charge of the town, on the morning of the 20th, and we

prepared to return to our cantonments. Lord Wellington happened to be

riding in at the gate at the time that we were marching out, and had

the curiosity to ask the officer of the leading company, what regiment

it was, for there was scarcely a vestige of uniform among the men,

some of whom were dressed in Frenchmen's coats, some in white

breeches, and huge jack-boots, some with cocked hats and queues; most

of their swords were fixed on the rifles, and stuck full of hams,

tongues, and loaves of bread, and not a few were carrying bird-cages!

There never was a better masked corps!

General Crawford fell on the glacis, at the head of our division, and

was buried at the foot of the breach which they so gallantly carried.

His funeral was attended by Lord Wellington, and all the officers of

the division, by whom he was, ultimately, much liked. He had

introduced a system of discipline into the light division which made

them unrivalled. A very rigid exaction of the duties pointed out in

his code of regulations made him very unpopular at its commencement,

and it was not until a short time before he was lost to us for ever,

that we were capable of appreciating his merits, and fully sensible of

the incalculable advantages we derived from the perfection of his

system.

Among other things carried from Ciudad Rodrigo, one of our men had the

misfortune to carry his death in his hands, under the mistaken shape

of amusement. He thought that it was a cannon-ball, and took it for

the purpose of playing at the game of nine-holes, but it happened to

be a live shell. In rolling it along it went over a bed of burning

ashes, and ignited without his observing it. Just as he had got it

between his legs, and was in the act of discharging it a second time,

it exploded, and nearly blew him to pieces.

Several men of our division, who had deserted while we were blockading

Ciudad Rodrigo, were taken when it fell, and were sentenced to be

shot. Lord Wellington extended mercy to every one who could procure

any thing like a good character from his officers; but six of them,

who could not, were paraded and shot, in front of the division, near

the village of Ituera. Shooting appears to me to be a cruel kind of

execution, for twenty balls may pierce a man's body without touching a

vital spot. On the occasion alluded to, two of the men remained

standing after the first fire, and the Provost-Marshal was obliged to

put an end to their sufferings, by placing the muzzle of a piece at

each of their heads.

CHAP. IX.

     March to Estremadura. A Deserter shot. Riding for an Appetite.

     Effect the Cure of a sick Lady. Siege of Badajos. Trench-Work.

     Varieties during the Siege. Taste of the Times. Storming of the

     Town. Its Fall. Officers of a French Battalion. Not shot by

     Accident. Military Shopkeepers. Lost Legs and cold Hearts.

     Affecting Anecdote. My Servant. A Consignment to Satan. March

     again for the North. Sir Sidney Beckwith.

We remained about six weeks in cantonments, after the fall of Ciudad

Rodrigo; and, about the end of February, were again put in motion

towards Estremadura.

March 7th.--Arrived near Castello de Vide, and quartered in the

neighbouring villages. Another deserter, who had also been taken at

the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo, was here shot, under the sentence of

a court martial. When he was paraded for that purpose, he protested

against their right to shoot him, until he first received the arrears

of pay which was due at the time of his desertion.

March 14th.--Two of us rode out this afternoon to kill time until

dinner hour (six); but, when we returned to our quarters, there was

not a vestige of the regiment remaining, and our appetites were

considerably whetted, by having an additional distance of fourteen

miles to ride, in the dark, over roads on which we could not trust our

horses out of a walk. We joined them, at about eleven at night, in the

town of Portalegré.

March 16th.--Quartered in the town of Elvas.

I received a billet on a neat little house, occupied by an old lady

and her daughter, who were very desirous of evading such an

incumbrance. For, after resisting my entrance, until successive

applications of my foot had reduced the door to a condition which

would no longer second their efforts, the old lady resolved to try me

on another _tack_; and, opening the door, and, making a sign for me

to make no noise, she told me, in a whisper, that her daughter was

lying dangerously ill of a fever, in the only bed in the house, and

that she was, therefore, excessively sorry that she could not

accommodate me. As this information did not at all accord with my

notions of consistency, after their having suffered the preceding half

hour's bombardment, I requested to be shewn to the chamber of the

invalid, saying that I was a _medico_, and might be of service to her.

When she found remonstrance unavailing, she at length shewed me into a

room up-stairs, where there was a very genteel-looking young girl, the

very picture of _Portuguese_ health, lying with her eyes shut, in full

dress, on the top of the bed-clothes, where she had hurriedly thrown

herself.

Seeing, at once, how matters stood, I walked up to the bed-side, and

hit her a slap on the thigh with my hand, asking her, at the same

time, how she felt herself? and never did Prince Hohenloe, himself,

perform a miracle more cleverly; for she bounced almost as high as the

ceiling, and flounced about the room, as well and as actively as

ever she did, with a countenance in which shame, anger, and a great

portion of natural humour were so amusingly blended, that I was

tempted to provoke her still further by a salute. Having thus

satisfied the mother that I had been the means of restoring her

daughter to her usual state of health, she thought it prudent to put

the best face upon it, and, therefore, invited me to partake of their

family dinner; in the course of which I succeeded so well in eating my

way into their affections, that we parted next morning with mutual

regret; they told me that I was the _best_ officer they had ever seen,

and begged that I would always make their house my home; but I was

never fated to see them again. We marched in the morning for Badajos.

SIEGE OF BADAJOS.

On the 17th of March, 1812, the _third_, _fourth_, and _light

divisions_, encamped around Badajos, embracing the whole of the

inland side of the town on the left bank of the Guadiana, and

commenced breaking ground before it immediately after dark the same

night.

The elements, on this occasion, adopted the cause of the besieged; for

we had scarcely taken up our ground, when a heavy rain commenced, and

continued, almost without intermission, for a fortnight; in

consequence thereof, the pontoon-bridge, connecting us with our

supplies from Elvas, was carried away, by the rapid increase of the

river, and the duties of the trenches were otherwise rendered

extremely harassing. We had a smaller force employed than at Rodrigo;

and the scale of operations was so much greater, that it required

every man to be actually in the trenches six hours every day, and the

same length of time every night, which, with the time required to

march to and from them, through fields more than ankle deep in a stiff

mud, left us never more than eight hours out of the twenty-four in

camp, and we never were dry the whole time.

One day's trench-work is as like another as the days themselves; and

like nothing better than serving an apprenticeship to the double

calling of grave-digger and game-keeper, for we found ample employment

both for the spade and the rifle.

The only varieties during the siege were,--First, The storming of

_Picuvina_, a formidable outwork, occupying the centre of our

operations. It was carried one evening, in the most gallant style, by

Major-General Sir James Kempt, at the head of the covering parties.

Secondly, A sortie made by the garrison, which they got the worst of,

although they succeeded in stealing some of our pickaxes and shovels.

Thirdly, A _circumbendibus_ described by a few daring French dragoons,

who succeeded in getting into the rear of our engineers' camp, at that

time unguarded, and lightened some of the officers of their

epaulettes. Lastly, Two field-pieces taken by the enemy to the

opposite side of the river, enfilading one of our parallels, and

materially disturbing the harmony within, as a cannon-shot is no very

welcome guest among gentlemen who happen to be lodged in a straight

ditch, without the power of _cutting_ it.

Our batteries were supplied with ammunition, by the Portuguese

militia, from Elvas, a string of whom used to arrive every day,

reaching nearly from the one place to the other (twelve miles), each

man carrying a twenty-four pound shot, and cursing all the way and

back again.

The Portuguese artillery, under British officers, was uncommonly good.

I used to be much amused in looking at a twelve-gun breaching-battery

of theirs.

They knew the position of all the enemy's guns which could bear upon

them, and had one man posted to watch them, to give notice of what was

coming, whether a shot or a shell, who, accordingly, kept calling out,

"_bomba, balla, balla, bomba_;" and they ducked their heads until the

missile past: but, sometimes he would see a general discharge from all

arms, when he threw himself down, screaming out "_Jesus, todos,

todos!_" meaning "every thing."

An officer of ours was sent one morning, before daylight, with ten

men, to dig holes for themselves, opposite to one of the enemy's guns,

which had been doing a great deal of mischief the day before, and he

had soon the satisfaction of knowing the effect of his practice, by

seeing them stopping up the embrasure with sandbags. After waiting a

little, he saw them beginning to remove the bags, when he made his men

open upon it again, and they were instantly replaced without the guns

being fired; presently he saw the huge cocked hat of a French officer

make its appearance on the rampart, near to the embrasure; but

knowing, by experience, that the _head_ was somewhere in the

neighbourhood, he watched until the flash of a musket, through the

long grass, showed the position of the owner, and, calling one of his

best shots, he desired him to take deliberate aim at the spot, and

lent his shoulder as a rest, to give it more elevation. Bang went the

shot, and it was the finishing flash for the Frenchman, for they saw

no more of _him_, although his cocked hat maintained its post until

dark.

In proportion as the grand crisis approached, the anxiety of the

soldiers increased; not on account of any doubt or dread as to the

result, but for fear that the place should be surrendered without

standing an assault; for, singular as it may appear, although there

was a certainty of about one man out of every three being knocked

down, there were, perhaps, not three men, in the three divisions, who

would not rather have braved all the chances than receive it tamely

from the hands of the enemy. So great was the rage for passports into

eternity, in our battalion, on that occasion, that even the officers'

servants insisted on taking their places in the ranks; and I was

obliged to leave my baggage in charge of a man who had been wounded

some days before.

On the 6th of April, three practicable breaches had been effected,

and arrangements were made for assaulting the town that night. The

third division, by escalade, at the castle; a brigade of the fifth

division, by escalade, at the opposite side of the town; while the

fourth and light divisions were to storm the breaches. The whole were

ordered to be formed for the attack at eight o'clock.

STORMING OF BADAJOS,

April 6th, 1812.

Our division formed for the attack of the left breach in the same

order as at Ciudad Rodrigo; the command of it had now devolved upon

our commandant, Colonel Barnard. I was then the acting adjutant of

four companies, under Colonel Cameron, who were to line the crest of

the glacis, and to fire at the ramparts and the top of the left

breach.

The enemy seemed aware of our intentions. The fire of artillery and

musketry, which, for three weeks before, had been incessant, both

from the town and trenches, had now entirely ceased, as if by mutual

consent, and a deathlike silence, of nearly an hour, preceded the

awful scene of carnage.

The signal to advance was made about nine o'clock, and our four

companies led the way. Colonel Cameron and myself had reconnoitred the

ground so accurately by daylight, that we succeeded in bringing the

head of our column to the very spot agreed on, opposite to the left

breach, and then formed line to the left, without a word being spoken,

each man lying down as he got into line, with the muzzle of his rifle

over the edge of the ditch, between the pallisades, all ready to open.

It was tolerably clear above, and we distinctly saw _their_ heads

lining the ramparts; but there was a sort of haze on the ground which,

with the colour of our dress, prevented them from seeing us, although

only a few yards asunder. One of their sentries, however, challenged

us twice, "_qui vive_," and, receiving no reply, he fired off his

musket, which was followed by their drums beating to arms; but _we_

still remained perfectly quiet, and all was silence again for the

space of five or ten minutes, when the head of the forlorn hope at

length came up, and we took advantage of the first fire, while the

enemy's heads were yet visible.

The scene that ensued furnished as respectable a representation of

hell itself as fire, and sword, and human sacrifices could make it;

for, in one instant, every engine of destruction was in full

operation.

It is in vain to attempt a description of it. We were entirely

excluded from the right breach by an inundation which the heavy rains

had enabled the enemy to form; and the two others were rendered

totally impracticable by their interior defences.

The five succeeding hours were therefore past in the most gallant and

hopeless attempts, on the part of individual officers, forming up

fifty or a hundred men at a time at the foot of the breach, and

endeavouring to carry it by desperate bravery; and, fatal as it proved

to each gallant band, in succession, yet, fast as one dissolved,

another was formed. We were informed, about twelve at night, that the

third division had established themselves in the castle; but, as its

situation and construction did not permit them to extend their

operations beyond it at the moment, it did not in the least affect our

opponents at the breach, whose defence continued as obstinate as ever.

I was near Colonel Barnard after midnight, when he received repeated

messages, from Lord Wellington, to withdraw from the breach, and to

form the division for a renewal of the attack at daylight; but, as

fresh attempts continued to be made, and the troops were still

pressing forward into the ditch, it went against his gallant soul to

order a retreat while yet a chance remained; but, after heading

repeated attempts himself, he saw that it was hopeless, and the order

was reluctantly given about two o'clock in the morning. We fell back

about three hundred yards, and re-formed all that remained to us.

Our regiment, alone, had to lament the loss of twenty-two officers

killed and wounded, ten of whom were killed, or afterwards died of

their wounds. We had scarcely got our men together when we were

informed of the success of the fifth division in their escalade, and

that the enemy were, in consequence, abandoning the breaches, and we

were immediately ordered forward to take possession of them. On our

arrival, we found them entirely evacuated, and had not occasion to

fire another shot; but we found the utmost difficulty, and even

danger, in getting in in the dark, even without opposition. As soon as

we succeeded in establishing our battalion inside, we sent piquets

into the different streets and lanes leading from the breach, and kept

the remainder in hand until day should throw some light on our

situation.

When I was in the act of posting one of the piquets, a man of ours

brought me a prisoner, telling me that he was the governor; but the

other immediately said that he had only called himself so, the better

to ensure his protection; and then added, that he was the colonel of

one of the French regiments, and that all his surviving officers were

assembled at his quarters, in a street close by, and would surrender

themselves to any officer who would go with him for that purpose. I

accordingly took two or three men with me, and, accompanying him

there, found fifteen or sixteen of them assembled, and all seeming

very much surprised at the unexpected termination of the siege. They

could not comprehend under what circumstances the town had been lost,

and repeatedly asked me how I had got in; but I did not choose to

explain further than simply telling them that I had entered at the

breach, coupling the information with a look which was calculated to

convey somewhat more than I knew myself; for, in truth, when I began

to recollect that a few minutes before had seen me retiring from the

breach, under a fanciful overload of degradation, I thought that I had

now as good a right as any man to be astonished at finding myself

_lording_ it over the officers of a French battalion; nor was I much

wiser than they were, as to the manner of its accomplishment. They

were all very much dejected, excepting their major, who was a big

jolly-looking Dutchman, with medals enough, on his left breast, to

have furnished the window of a tolerable toy-shop. His accomplishments

were after the manner of Captain Dougal Dalgetty; and, while he

cracked his joke, he was not inattentive to the cracking of the corks

from the many wine-bottles which his colonel placed on the table

successively, along with some cold meat, for general refreshment,

prior to marching into captivity, and which I, though a free man, was

not too proud to join them in.

When I had allowed their chief a reasonable time to secure what

valuables he wished, about his person, he told me that he had two

horses in the stable, which, as he would no longer be permitted to

keep, he recommended me to take; and, as a horse is the only thing on

such occasions that an officer can permit himself to consider a legal

prize, I caused one of them to be saddled, and his handsome black mare

thereby became my charger during the remainder of the war.

In proceeding with my prisoners towards the breach, I took, by

mistake, a different road to that I came; and, as numbers of Frenchmen

were lurking about for a safe opportunity of surrendering themselves,

about a hundred additional ones added themselves to my column, as we

moved along, _jabbering_ their native dialect so loudly, as nearly to

occasion a dire catastrophe, as it prevented me from hearing some one

challenge in my front; but, fortunately, it was repeated, and I

instantly answered; for Colonel Barnard and Sir Colin Campbell had a

piquet of our men, drawn across the street, on the point of sending a

volley into us, thinking that we were a rallied body of the enemy.

The whole of the garrison were marched off, as prisoners, to Elvas,

about ten o'clock in the morning, and our men were then permitted to

fall out, to enjoy themselves for the remainder of the day, as a

reward for having kept together so long as they were wanted. The whole

of the three divisions were, by this time, loose in the town; and the

usual frightful scene of plunder commenced, which the officers thought

it necessary to avoid for the moment, by retiring to the camp.

We went into the town on the morning of the 8th, to endeavour to

collect our men, but only succeeded in part, as the same extraordinary

scene of plunder and rioting still continued. Wherever there was any

thing to eat or drink, the only saleable commodities, the soldiers had

turned the shopkeepers out of doors, and placed themselves regularly

behind the counter, selling off the contents of the shop. By and bye,

another and a stronger party would kick those out in their turn, and

there was no end to the succession of self-elected shopkeepers, until

Lord Wellington found that, to restore order, severe measures must be

resorted to. On the third day, he caused a Portuguese brigade to be

marched in, and kept standing to their arms, in the great square,

where the provost-martial erected a gallows, and proceeded to suspend

a few of the delinquents, which very quickly cleared the town of the

remainder, and enabled us to give a more satisfactory account of our

battalion than we had hitherto been able to do.

It is wonderful how such scenes as these will deaden men's finer

feelings, and with what apathy it enables them to look upon the

sufferings of their fellow creatures! The third day after the fall of

the town, I rode, with Colonel Cameron, to take a bathe in the

Guadiana, and, in passing the verge of the camp of the 5th division,

we saw two soldiers standing at the door of a small shed, or outhouse,

shouting, waving their caps, and making signs that they wanted to

speak to us. We rode up to see what they wanted, and found that the

poor fellows had each lost a leg. They told us that a surgeon had

dressed their wounds on the night of the assault, but that they had

ever since been without food or assistance of any kind, although they,

each day, had opportunities of soliciting the aid of many of their

comrades, from whom they could obtain nothing but promises. In short,

surrounded by thousands of their countrymen within call, and not more

than three hundred yards from their own regiment, they were unable to

interest any one in their behalf, and were literally starving.

It is unnecessary to say that we instantly galloped back to the camp

and had them removed to the hospital.

On the morning of the 7th, when some of our officers were performing

the last duties to their fallen comrades, one of them had collected

the bodies of four of our young officers, who had been slain. He was

in the act of digging a grave for them, when an officer of the guards,

arrived on the spot, from a distant division of the army, and demanded

tidings of his brother, who was at that moment lying a naked lifeless

corpse, under his very eyes. The officer had the presence of mind to

see that the corpse was not recognized, and, wishing to spare the

other's feelings, told him that his brother was dangerously wounded,

but that he would hear more of him by going out to the camp; and

thither the other immediately bent his steps, with a seeming

_presentiment_ of the sad intelligence that awaited him.

April 9th.--As I had not seen my domestic since the storming of the

town, I concluded that he had been killed; but he turned up this

morning, with a tremendous gash on his head, and mounted on the top of

a horse nearly twenty feet high, carrying under his arm one of those

glass cases which usually stand on the counters of jewellers' shops,

filled with all manner of trinkets. He looked exactly like the ghost

of a horse pedler.

April 10th.--The devil take the man who stole my donkey last night.

April 11th.--Marched again for the neighbourhood of Ciudad Rodrigo,

with the long-accustomed sounds of cannon and musketry ringing in my

fanciful ears as merrily as if the instruments themselves were still

playing.

Sir Sidney Beckwith, one of the fathers of the rifles, was, at this

time, obliged to proceed to England for the recovery of health, and

did not again return to the Peninsula. In his departure, that army

lost one of the ablest of its outpost generals. Few officers knew so

well how to make the most of a small force. His courage, coupled with

his thorough knowledge of the soldier's character, was of that cool

intrepid kind, that would, at any time, convert a routed rabble into

an orderly effective force. A better officer, probably, never led a

brigade into the field!

CHAP X.

     A Farewell Address to Portalegré. History of a Night in Castello

     Branco. Regimental Colours lost, with Directions where to find

     them. Cases in which a Victory is sometimes won by those who lost

     it. Advance to Salamanca. The City. The British Position on St.

     Christoval. Affair in Position. Marmont's Change of Position and

     Retreat. A Case of Bad Luck. Advance to Rueda, and Customs there.

     Retire to Castrejon. Affairs on the 18th and 19th of July. Battle

     of Salamanca, and Defeat of the Enemy.

April 13th, 1812.--Quartered at Portalegré.

DEAR PORTALEGRÉ!

I cannot quit thee, for the fourth and last time, without a parting

tribute to the remembrance of thy wild romantic scenery, and to the

kindness and hospitality of thy worthy citizens! May thy gates

continue shut to thine enemies as heretofore, and, as heretofore, may

they ever prove those of happiness to thy friends! Dear nuns of Santa

Clara! I thank thee for the enjoyment of many an hour of nothingness;

and thine, Santa Barbara, for many of a more intellectual cast! May

the voice of thy chapel-organ continue unrivalled but by the voices of

thy lovely choristers! and may the piano in thy refectory be replaced

by a better, in which the harmony of strings may supersede the

clattering of ivories! May the sweets which thou hast lavished on us

be showered upon thee ten thousand fold! And may those accursed iron

bars divide thee as effectually from death as they did from us!!!

April 15th.--Quartered at Castello Branco.

This town had been so often visited by the French and us, alternately,

that the inhabitants, at length, confounded their friends with their

foes; and by treating both sides as enemies, they succeeded in making

them so.

When I went this evening to present my billet on a respectable

looking house, the door was opened by the lady of it, wearing a most

gingerly aspect. She told me, with an equivocal sort of look, that she

had two spare beds in the house, and that either of them were at my

service; and, by way of illustration, shewed me into a sort of

servant's room, off the kitchen, half full of apples, onions,

potatoes, and various kinds of lumber, with a dirty looking bed in one

corner; and, on my requesting to see the other, she conducted me up to

the garret, into the very counterpart of the one below, though the

room was somewhat differently garnished. I told her, that they were

certainly two capital beds; but, as I was a modest person, and

disliked all extremes, that I should be quite satisfied with any one

on the floor which I had not yet seen. This, however, she told me, was

impossible, as every one of them were required by her own family.

While we were descending the stair, disputing the point, I caught the

handle of the first door that I came to, twisted it open, and seeing

it a neat little room, with nothing but a table and two or three

chairs, I told her that it would suit me perfectly; and, desiring her

to have a good mattress with clean linen, laid in one corner of it, by

nine o'clock; adding a few hints, to satisfy her that I was quite in

earnest, I went to dine with my messmates.

When I returned to the house, about ten o'clock, I was told that I

should find a light in the room and my bed ready. I accordingly

ascended, and found every thing as represented; and, in addition

thereto, I found another bed lying alongside of mine, containing a

huge fat friar, with a bald pate, fast asleep, and blowing the most

tremendous nasal trumpet that I ever heard! As my _friend_ had

evidently been placed there for my annoyance, I did not think it

necessary to use much ceremony in getting rid of him; and, catching

him by the two ears, I raised him up on his legs, while he groaned in

a seeming agonized doubt, whether the pain was inflicted by a man or a

night-mare; and before he had time to get himself broad awake, I had

chucked him and his clothing, bed and bedding, out at the door,

which I locked, and enjoyed a sound sleep the remainder of the night.

They offered me no further molestation; but, in taking my departure,

at daylight, next morning, I observed my landlady reconnoitring me

from an up-stairs window, and thought it prudent not to go too near

it.

While we had been employed at Badajos, Marmont had advanced in the

north, and blockaded Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, sending advanced

parties into the frontier towns of Portugal, to the confusion and

consternation of the Portuguese militia, who had been stationed for

their protection; and who, quite satisfied with the _report_ of their

coming, did not think it necessary to wait the report of their cannon.

Marshal Beresford, in his paternal address to "_Los Valerossos_," in

commemoration of their conduct on this occasion, directed that the

colours of each regiment should be lodged in the town-halls of their

respective districts, until they each provided themselves with _a

pair_ out of the ranks of the enemy; but I never heard that any of

them were redeemed in the manner prescribed.

The French retired upon Salamanca on our approach; and we resumed our

former quarters without opposition.

Hitherto we had been fighting the description of battle in which John

Bull glories so much--gaining a brilliant and useless victory against

great odds. But we were now about to contend for fame on equal terms;

and, having tried both, I will say, without partiality, that I would

rather fight one man than two any day; for I have never been quite

satisfied that the additional _quantum_ of glory altogether

compensated for the proportionate loss of substance; a victory of that

kind being a doubtful and most unsatisfactory one to the performers,

with each occupying the same ground _after_, that they did _before_;

and the whole merit resting with the side which did not happen to

begin it.

We remained about two months in cantonments, to recover the effects of

the late sieges; and as by that time all the perforated skins and

repairable cracked limbs had been mended, the army was assembled in

front of Ciudad Rodrigo, to commence what may be termed the second

campaign of 1812.

The enemy retired from Salamanca on our approach, leaving garrisons in

three formidable little forts, which they had erected on the most

commanding points of the city, and which were immediately invested by

a British division.

Salamanca, as a city, appeared to me to be more ancient than

respectable; for, excepting an old cathedral and a new square, I saw

nothing in it worth looking at, always saving and excepting their

pretty little girls, who (the deuce take them) cost me two nights good

sleep. For, by way of _doing a little dandy_ in passing through such a

celebrated city, I disencumbered the under part of my saddle of the

blanket, and the upper part of the boat-cloak with which it was

usually adorned; and the penalty which I paid for my gentility was,

sleeping the next two nights in position two miles in front of the

town, while these useful appendages were lying on the baggage two

miles in rear of it.

The heights of St. Christoval, which we occupied as a position to

cover the siege, were strong, but quite unsheltered, and unfurnished

with either wood or water. We were indebted for our supplies of the

latter to the citizens of Salamanca; while stubbles and dry grass were

our only fuel.

Marmont came down upon us the first night with a thundering cannonade,

and placed his army _en masse_ on the plain before us, almost within

gun shot. I was told that, while Lord Wellington was riding along the

line, under a fire of artillery, and accompanied by a numerous staff,

that a brace of greyhounds, in pursuit of a hare, passed close to him.

He was, at the moment, in earnest conversation with General Castanos;

but the instant he observed them, he gave the view hallo, and went

after them at full speed, to the utter astonishment of his foreign

accompaniments. Nor did he stop until he saw the hare killed; when he

returned, and resumed the commander-in-chief, as if nothing had

occurred.

The enemy, next morning, commenced a sharp attack on our advanced

post, in the village of Moresco; and, as it continued to be fed by

both sides, there was every appearance of its bringing on a general

action; but they desisted towards the afternoon, and the village

remained divided between us.

Marmont, after looking at us for several days, did not think it

prudent to risk an attack on our present post; and, as the

telegraph-rockets from the town told him that his garrison was reduced

to extremity, he crossed the Tormes, on the night of the 26th June, in

the hopes of being able to relieve them from that side of the river.

Our division followed his movement, and took post, for the night, at

Aldea Lingua. They sent forward a strong reconnoitring party at

daylight next morning, but they were opposed by General Bock's brigade

of heavy German dragoons, who would not permit them to see more than

was necessary; and, as the forts fell into our hands the same night,

Marmont had no longer an object in remaining there, and fell back,

behind the Douro, occupying the line of Toro and Torodesillas.

By the accidental discharge of a musket, one day last year, the ramrod

entered the belly, passed through the body, and the end of it stuck in

the back-bone of one of the soldiers of our division, from whence it

was actually hammered out with a stone. The poor fellow recovered, and

joined his regiment, as well as ever he had been, and was, last night,

unfortunately drowned, while bathing in the Tormes.

When the enemy retired, our division advanced and occupied Rueda, a

handsome little town, on the left bank of the Douro.

It abounded in excellent wines, and our usual evening dances began

there to be graced by a superior class of females to what they had

hitherto been accustomed. I remember that, in passing the house of the

sexton, one evening, I saw his daughter baking a loaf of bread; and,

falling desperately in love with both her and the loaf, I carried the

one to the ball and the other to my quarters. A woman was a woman in

those days; and every officer made it a point of duty to marshal as

many as he could to the general assembly, no matter whether they were

countesses or _sextonesses_; and although we, in consequence,

frequently incurred the most indelible disgrace among the better

orders of our indiscriminate collection, some of whom would retire in