to
keep, he recommended me to take; and, as a horse is the only thing on
such occasions that an officer can permit himself to consider a legal
prize, I caused one of them to be saddled, and his handsome black mare
thereby became my charger during the remainder of the war.

In proceeding with my prisoners towards the breach, I took, by
mistake, a different road to that I came; and, as numbers of Frenchmen
were lurking about for a safe opportunity of surrendering themselves,
about a hundred additional ones added themselves to my column, as we
moved along, _jabbering_ their native dialect so loudly, as nearly to
occasion a dire catastrophe, as it prevented me from hearing some one
challenge in my front; but, fortunately, it was repeated, and I
instantly answered; for Colonel Barnard and Sir Colin Campbell had a
piquet of our men, drawn across the street, on the point of sending a
volley into us, thinking that we were a rallied body of the enemy.

The whole of the garrison were marched off, as prisoners, to Elvas,
about ten o'clock in the morning, and our men were then permitted to
fall out, to enjoy themselves for the remainder of the day, as a
reward for having kept together so long as they were wanted. The whole
of the three divisions were, by this time, loose in the town; and the
usual frightful scene of plunder commenced, which the officers thought
it necessary to avoid for the moment, by retiring to the camp.

We went into the town on the morning of the 8th, to endeavour to
collect our men, but only succeeded in part, as the same extraordinary
scene of plunder and rioting still continued. Wherever there was any
thing to eat or drink, the only saleable commodities, the soldiers had
turned the shopkeepers out of doors, and placed themselves regularly
behind the counter, selling off the contents of the shop. By and bye,
another and a stronger party would kick those out in their turn, and
there was no end to the succession of self-elected shopkeepers, until
Lord Wellington found that, to restore order, severe measures must be
resorted to. On the third day, he caused a Portuguese brigade to be
marched in, and kept standing to their arms, in the great square,
where the provost-martial erected a gallows, and proceeded to suspend
a few of the delinquents, which very quickly cleared the town of the
remainder, and enabled us to give a more satisfactory account of our
battalion than we had hitherto been able to do.

It is wo