; but we found the utmost difficulty, and even
danger, in getting in in the dark, even without opposition. As soon as
we succeeded in establishing our battalion inside, we sent piquets
into the different streets and lanes leading from the breach, and kept
the remainder in hand until day should throw some light on our
situation.

When I was in the act of posting one of the piquets, a man of ours
brought me a prisoner, telling me that he was the governor; but the
other immediately said that he had only called himself so, the better
to ensure his protection; and then added, that he was the colonel of
one of the French regiments, and that all his surviving officers were
assembled at his quarters, in a street close by, and would surrender
themselves to any officer who would go with him for that purpose. I
accordingly took two or three men with me, and, accompanying him
there, found fifteen or sixteen of them assembled, and all seeming
very much surprised at the unexpected termination of the siege. They
could not comprehend under what circumstances the town had been lost,
and repeatedly asked me how I had got in; but I did not choose to
explain further than simply telling them that I had entered at the
breach, coupling the information with a look which was calculated to
convey somewhat more than I knew myself; for, in truth, when I began
to recollect that a few minutes before had seen me retiring from the
breach, under a fanciful overload of degradation, I thought that I had
now as good a right as any man to be astonished at finding myself
_lording_ it over the officers of a French battalion; nor was I much
wiser than they were, as to the manner of its accomplishment. They
were all very much dejected, excepting their major, who was a big
jolly-looking Dutchman, with medals enough, on his left breast, to
have furnished the window of a tolerable toy-shop. His accomplishments
were after the manner of Captain Dougal Dalgetty; and, while he
cracked his joke, he was not inattentive to the cracking of the corks
from the many wine-bottles which his colonel placed on the table
successively, along with some cold meat, for general refreshment,
prior to marching into captivity, and which I, though a free man, was
not too proud to join them in.

When I had allowed their chief a reasonable time to secure what
valuables he wished, about his person, he told me that he had two
horses in the stable, which, as he would no longer be permitted