t proper discipline and justice may be kept up. A part of
the Twenty-Seventh Regiment was billeted at a village near where we
were situated, most of whom were I believe Irish; and two of the more
ruffianly, knowing that a farmer who lived close by had gone to
market, and would probably return laden with the value of the goods he
had sold, laid wait for him with the intention of robbing him; and
having met him, they fell upon him and left him in a corn-field
evidently for dead, first stripping him of everything valuable about
his person. There the man lay till his friends becoming uneasy at his
long absence a search was made and he was tracked to his mournful bed.
He was not dead when found, and so was conveyed to his house and
properly attended to by a doctor, and at the end of a week he was able
to give an account of the ill-treatment he said he had received at the
hands of two soldiers who were quartered in the village occupied by
the Twenty-Seventh Regiment.

One of the officers was consequently informed of the occurrence, and
immediately went to the farmer to learn the rights of the story. The
man could not tell the amount of money that had been taken from him,
but he said he could recognize the men again. As soon, therefore, as
he was able to walk, the officer took him down the ranks of his
regiment, and certainly he proved to be correct about recognizing
them, for he immediately picked out two men who were found to have
been out at the time described. They were conveyed as prisoners to the
guard-room, and reported to the general, who immediately ordered a
court-martial, and, accepting the evidence of their sergeant, who
pronounced them to be as often tipsy as not, found them guilty, and
they were sentenced to be hanged. The sentence was, however, first
sent to be approved of by Lord Wellington, who sanctioned it and
returned it; and the execution was accordingly ordered to be carried
out.

The men were allowed a week to prepare themselves for their awful
doom, and at the end of that time the brigade was called together to
take warning from their unhappy fate. It was on a Monday morning that
we formed square round the gallows which had been erected for the
occasion; and all being ready, the men were brought under the gallows
in a spring-wagon guarded by a sergeant and twelve men of their own
regiment, one of which latter having adjusted the ropes, the chaplain
read the service. Then the question usual in these ca