down in great numbers. Sorry am I to add that, in performing this service, he lost his valuable life. A great proportion of his men fell with him.

While these things were going forward in the centre, I had advanced considerably to the left, and had got in the rear of my old Monte Videan friends the fortieth, who, with the thirty-sixth and seventy-first regiments, composed the brigade commanded by Major-Gen. Ferguson, which was the left of our army. Brigadier-Gen. C. Crawfurd's brigade, with some Portuguese troops, covered their left flank, on the opposite side of a deep ravine. Here the enemy came up with great impetuosity. They were first opposed in front by our riflemen, whom they drove in. Coming up, however, with Major-General Ferguson's division, they received a tremendous volley, and were shortly after brought to the charge. This was an operation their nerves could not withstand, and they immediately gave way. Our troops pursued them with eagerness, killed and wounded an immense number, and took several pieces of cannon.

The action commenced about half past nine, and terminated a little after twelve o'clock. Close to the spot where Major-General Ferguson's brigade received the attack of the French, stood a small farm house, into which it had been determined to carry the wounded. Thither I

repaired, and witnessed a scene the most distressing. Around the building, whose interior was crowded with the wounded, lay a number of poor fellows in the greatest agony, not only from the anguish of their wounds (many of which were deplorable), but from the intense heat of the sun, which increased the parching fever induced by pain and loss of blood. Two fig-trees afforded the scanty blessing of a sort of shade to the few who were huddled together beneath their almost leafless branches. Over the surrounding field lay scattered the fragments of arms, and military equipments of every description-caps, muskets, swords, bayonets, belts, and cartouch-boxes covered the ground; on which were also stretched, in many an awful group, the friend and foe, the dying and the dead. The same capacious grave soon after received the natives of very different climes,-men who had drawn their first breath on the banks of the Thames, or the Tiber; the Seine, or the Vistula. How unaccountable are those dispensations of Providence, by which beings, totally unknown to one another, are thus assembled, from regions the most remote, for the dire purpose of mutual destruction.

On entering the cottage to survey the sadly interesting group within, I recognized, amid the gloom of an inner apartment, the features of an officer with whom I was for

merly well acquainted. On approaching he recollected me, and pointed to the spot where the fatal lead had entered. I was happy to perceive that the wound was not immediately dangerous, and instantly tendered him my services. The ball had been extracted by a surgeon. He pressed my hand, and thanked me, while in his dim eye there glistened a grateful tear, which he turned his head aside to conceal. I repeated the assurances which he had before received from his surgeon, that his wound was not mortal, and having advised a bleeding, which was instantly performed, I quitted him, to offer my services to any of those around who might require them.

I could be useful, I found, to a great many who, but for my interference in a duty and department not strictly my own, might have remained for many hours in excessive pain.

To several, a simple inspection of their wounds, with a few words of consolation, or perhaps a little opium, was all that could be done or recommended. Of these brave men the balls had pierced organs essentially connected with life; and in such cases, prudence equally forbids the rash interposition of unavailing art, and the useless indulgence of delusive hope.

D

On going over the house, I discovered, that by opening a door which led into a large space appropriated to the operations of the vintage, and removing the empty wine pipes which it contained, many of the unfortunate sufferers might have the advantage of being removed from beneath the burning influence of the sun. I inquired, therefore, for the proprietors of the dwelling, in order to procure the keys; but I soon found that at the commencement of the battle they had fled, and abandoned their home to its fate. I was accordingly obliged to have recourse to some of the pioneers, employed in the office of burying the dead, whose hatchets soon forced an entrance; and having caused the contents to be removed, with as little injury as possible to the owners, and a large quantity of heath to be spread over the damp floor, I had as many of the wounded brought in as the apartment could contain.

While this was going on, our victorious troops were returning to their lines, from the pursuit of the discomfited foe; who, after having ineffectually rallied and attempted to retake his guns, had retired to the north-east in great disorder, and was hastening to regain Torres Vedras, by the high road which leads from thence to Lourinha.

The armed Portuguese peasantry, who, during the day