h we needed them,
for on the 10th of October the French came in sight of our strong
position, where we had drawn up, determined that they should not
proceed one step farther towards Lisbon.

Massena was rather surprised at our strength, which was quite
unexpected by him. He had thought of driving the English into the sea,
but he now found his mistake, so encamped about a mile and a half from
our position.

On the 14th, however, he attacked our lines near Sobral, but was
repulsed; and on another occasion a slight skirmish took place on the
right of the line, in which the French general, St. Croix, was killed
by the fire from our gunboats; but on account of our strong position,
the French did not come to a general engagement.

The cold and rainy weather having now set in, Lord Wellington had
provided as well as possible for the best reception of his troops, who
were mostly now in cantonments, whilst those of Massena's army were
subject to hardships of the worst description, owing to the cold,
wet, and above all insufficient food and raiment, for they were far
away from all supplies from their own country, and there were
guerillas or mountain rebels always on the watch to intercept such as
were sent, while our army was so near Lisbon that it could always get
abundance. Our regiment was situated in a village called Patamara, in
the front of our works, where we lay as comfortably as if we had been
living in peaceful times; though we were so near the enemy that we
very often wandered into the same vineyards, and exchanged compliments
by shaking hands.

We were cantoned in a large cellar, but it was unfortunately empty, or
at least there was no wine in it, and though there was a quantity of
wheat in a vat, we had no need of that, as we had plenty of our own
supplies. The owner of our cellar generally visited us every day, and
we could not help thinking after a time that he seemed to take
particular notice of a large box or bin that two of our men were using
to sleep in, so we moved it one morning, and found that the ground
underneath had been disturbed. Of course we thought that there must be
some treasure concealed there, so we went to work with our bayonets,
having no other tools at hand, and soon we came across a large jar,
which we found contained bags of dollars, about two hundred and fifty
in each bag; which treasure we distributed privately among the cellar
company, carefully breaking the jar and returning the eart