troopers captains of companies; put
them in the way of obtaining arms and, by dint of hard drill and
kindness, converted them into an efficient body of soldiers.
Finding that little was to be expected from Romana's force, he
acted as a partisan leader and, in this capacity, performed such
valuable service that he was confirmed in the command of his force,
which received the name of the Minho regiment; and he and his
officers received commissions for the rank they held in the
Portuguese army.

At Oporto he rescued from a convent a cousin, who, at the death of
her father, a British merchant there, had been shut up by her
Portuguese mother until she would consent to sign away the property
to which she was entitled, and to become a nun. She went to England
to live with Terence's father, and came into possession of the
fortune which her father, foreseeing that difficulties might arise
at his death, had forwarded to a bank at home, having appointed
Captain O'Connor her guardian.

The present volume takes the story of the Peninsular War up to the
battle of Salamanca, and concludes the history of Terence O'Connor.
My readers will understand that, in all actions in which the
British army took part, the details are accurately given; but that
the doings of the Minho regiment, and of Terence O'Connor as a
partisan leader, are not to be considered as strictly historical,
although similar feats of daring and adventure were accomplished by
Trant, Pack, and other leaders of irregular forces.

G. A. Henty.

Chapter 1: A Detached Force.

"Be jabers, Terence, we shall all die of weariness with doing
nothing, if we don't move soon," said Captain O'Grady; who, with
Dick Ryan, had ridden over to spend the afternoon with Terence
O'Connor, whose regiment of Portuguese was encamped some six miles
out of Abrantes, where the division to which the Mayo Fusiliers
belonged was stationed.

"Here we are in June, and the sun getting hotter and hotter, and
the whisky just come to an end, though we have been mighty sparing
over it, and nothing to eat but ration beef. Begorrah, if it wasn't
for the bastely drill, I should forget that I was a soldier at all.
I should take meself for a convict, condemned to stop all me life
in one place. At first there was something to do, for one could
forage for food dacent to eat; but now I don't believe there is as
much as an old hen left within fifteen miles, and as for ducks and
geese, I have almost f