e them were always unavailing. They were either stabbed before our
faces, or dragged to the top of a hill commanding a view of some
fortress occupied by the French, and, in sight of their countrymen,
their throats cut from ear to ear.

Should the Christian reader condemn this horrid barbarity, as he
certainly will, he must remember that those people were men whose every
feeling had been outraged. Rape, conflagration; murder, and famine had
everywhere followed the step of the cruel invaders; and, however we
might lament their fate and endeavour to avert it, we could not but
admit that the retaliation was not without justice. In this irregular
warfare, we sometimes revelled in luxuries, and at others were nearly
starved. One day, in particular, when fainting with hunger, we met a
fat, rosy-looking capuchin: we begged him to show us where we might
procure some food, either by purchase or in any other way; but he
neither knew where to procure any nor had he any money: his order, he
said, forbade him to use it. As he turned away from us in some
precipitation, we thought we heard something rattle; and as necessity
has no law, we took the liberty of searching the padre, on whose person
we found forty dollars, of which we relieved him, assuring him that our
consciences were perfectly clear, since his order forbade him to carry
money; and that as he lived amongst good Christians, they would not
allow him to want. He cursed us; but we laughed at him, because he had
produced his own misfortune by his falsehood and hypocrisy.

This was the manner in which the Spanish priests generally behaved to
us; and in this way we generally repaid them when we could. We kept the
plunder--converted it into food--joined our party soon after, and
supposed the affair was over; but the friar had followed us at a
distance, and we perceived him coming up the hill where we were
stationed. To avoid discovery we exchanged clothes, in such a manner as
to render us no longer cognisable. The friar made his complaint to the
guerilla chief, whose eyes flashed fire at the indignant treatment his
priest had received; and it is probable that bloodshed would have ensued
had he been able to point out the culprit.

I kept my countenance though I had changed my dress, and as he looked at
me with something beyond suspicion, I stared him full in the face with
the whole united power of my matchless impudence, and in a loud and
menacing tone of voice, asked h