moving the locks. I myself saw that morning a
naked priest launched into the street and flogged down it by some of
our men who had a grudge against him for the treatment they had met at
a convent, when staying in the town before. I happened to meet one of
my company, and asked him how he was getting on, to which he replied
that he was wounded in the arm, but that he had got hold of something
that compensated for that a little, showing me a bag of about a
hundred dollars that he had succeeded in obtaining, and saying that I
should not want whilst he had got it.

But whilst all this debauchery was going on amongst some of our
soldiers, I will give a word of credit to a great many of the more
respectable, who were trying as much as lay in their power to stop the
ferociousness of the same. That morning I met many about, who said
they were sorry to think that the soldiers could not carry it on
without going to such excesses as they did, respectable houses being
ransacked from top to bottom, with no regard to the entreaties of the
few inhabitants who remained within the walls. Things that could not
be taken were often destroyed, and men were threatened if they did not
produce their money, and the women sometimes the same. Comparatively
few murders were, I believe, committed, but some no doubt occurred.

It was not till the drunken rabble had dropped into a sound slumber or
had died in consequence of their excesses, that the unhappy city
became at all composed; but in the morning some fresh troops were
placed on guard, and a few gallows were erected, but not much used.
Two or three officers had been killed in the act of keeping order, and
I have been given to understand that some of the fifth division,
having arrived after most places had been ransacked, plundered their
drunken fellow-comrades, and it was likewise reported that a few were
even murdered. Lord Wellington punished all offenders by stopping
their grog for some time; but in these times such scenes as these were
generally found to occur after a place had had to be so hardly fought
for. No doubt in the present day, at least half a century later, more
discipline is observed in similar circumstances, which must be owned
as a great improvement.

This same morning the garrison surrendered. Before the assault it had
numbered about five thousand, but we found that some twelve hundred of
these had been slain, and now the rest were prisoners; while upwards
of one hundred