l into the
hands of others who served there, and who may be unreasonable enough
to expect their names to be mentioned in it, let me tell them that
they are most confoundedly mistaken! Every man may write a book for
himself, if he likes, but _this_ is mine; and, as I borrow no man's
story, neither will I give any man a particle of credit for his deeds,
as I have got so little for my own that I have none to spare. Neither
will I mention any regiment but my own, if I can possibly avoid it,
for there is none other that I like so much, and none else so much
deserves it; for we were the light regiment of the Light Division, and
fired the first and last shot in almost every battle, siege, and
skirmish, in which the army was engaged during the war.

In stating the foregoing resolution, however, with regard to
regiments, I beg to be understood as identifying our old and gallant
associates, the forty-third and fifty-second, as a part of ourselves,
for they bore their share in every thing, and I love them as I hope to
do my better half, (when I come to be divided,) wherever _we_ were,
_they_ were; and although the nature of our arm generally gave us more
employment in the way of skirmishing, yet, whenever it came to a
pinch, independent of a suitable mixture of them among us, we had
only to look behind to see a line, in which we might place a degree of
confidence, almost equal to our hopes in heaven; nor were we ever
disappointed. There never was a corps of riflemen in the hands of such
supporters!

October 1st, 1810.--We stood to our arms at day light this morning, on
a hill in front of Coimbra; and, as the enemy soon after came on in
force, we retired before them through the city. The civil authorities,
in making their own hurried escape, had totally forgotten that they
had left a gaol full of rogues unprovided for, and who, as we were
passing near them, made the most hideous screaming for relief. Our
quarter-master-general very humanely took some men, who broke open the
doors, and the whole of them were soon seen howling along the bridge
into the wide world, in the most delightful delirium, with the French
dragoons at their heels.

We retired, the same night, through Condacia, where the commissariat
were destroying quantities of stores that they were unable to carry
off. They handed out shoes and shirts to any one that would take them,
and the streets were literally running ankle deep with rum, in which
the soldiers were di