pping their cups and helping themselves as they
marched along. The commissariat, some years afterwards, called for a
return of the men who had received shirts and shoes on this occasion,
with a view of making us pay for them, but we very briefly replied
that the one half were dead, and the other half would be d----d before
they would pay any thing.

We retired this day to Leria, and, at the entrance of the city, saw an
English and a Portuguese soldier dangling by the bough of a tree--the
first summary example I had ever seen of martial law.

A provost-marshal, on actual service, is a character of considerable
pretensions, as he can flog at pleasure, always moves about with a
guard of honour, and though he cannot altogether stop a man's breath
without an order, yet, when he is ordered to hang a given number out
of a crowd of plunderers, his _friends_ are not particularly
designated, so that he can invite any one that he takes a fancy to, to
follow him to the nearest tree, where he, without further ceremony,
relieves him from the cares and troubles of this wicked world.

There was only one _furnished_ shop remaining in the town at this
time, and I went in to see what they had got to sell; but I had
scarcely past the threshold when I heard a tremendous clatter at my
heels, as if the opposite house had been pitched in at the door after
me; and, on wheeling round to ascertain the cause, I found, when the
dust cleared away, that a huge stone balcony, with iron railings,
which had been over the door, overcharged with a collection of old
wives looking at the troops, had tumbled down; and in spite of their
vociferations for the aid of their patron saints, some them were
considerably damaged.

We halted one night near the Convent of Batalha, one of the finest
buildings in Portugal. It has, I believe, been clearly established,
that a living man in ever so bad health is better than two dead ones;
but it appears that the latter will vary in value according to
circumstances, for we found here, in very high preservation, the body
of King John of Portugal, who founded the edifice in commemoration of
some victory, God knows how long ago; and though he would have been
reckoned a highly valuable antique, within a glass case, in an
apothecary's hall in England, yet he was held so cheap in his own
house, that the very finger which most probably pointed the way to the
victory alluded to, is now in the baggage of the Rifle Brigade!
Reade