a
projecting piece of land, all communication from the mainland was cut
off. The country around meanwhile abounded with ducks, geese, turkeys,
fowls, and plenty of sheep and bullocks, which it may be made sure our
men found oftentimes very providential.

On the third day of our encampment the Spaniards sallied out of the
town to surprise our picket, which being overpowered was obliged to
retreat, leaving two grenadiers wounded on the field, whom the
Spaniards much to our horror deliberately cut into pieces. But on the
body of our army coming up and charging them, a terrible slaughter
ensued on their retreat to the town, which amply repaid us for our two
grenadiers; as far as I am able to state, there could not have been
less than three thousand killed and wounded, for the next day we had
actually to bury two thousand of them. Our loss was a mere nothing.

I remember that I happened to be placed that night on sentry at the
road leading to the town, and not far from a hole where we had buried
five or six hundred of the enemy. It was the most uncomfortable two
hours' sentry I had ever spent as yet, and I kept my eyes more on the
place where the dead were than on the road I was placed to watch, not
having altogether forgotten the absurd ghost stories of my own
country. I in a way began to think, too, that I had done a good many
things I should have liked not to, and to regret for the first time
leaving my apprenticeship, my father, mother, and friends, to follow a
life so dangerous as I now found this to be, with nothing to expect,
as I thought, but to be myself numbered with the slain. I soon became
more hardened, however, as I was more and more mixed up in similar or
worse affairs than these slight brushes with a weak enemy had proved
to be. However, at this juncture I took the opportunity to send my
first letter home, so as to satisfy the folks there of my whereabouts,
though I kept from them the more perilous part of my story.

We reported to the general the circumstances of the Spaniards'
barbarity to our wounded comrades, and the answer he gave was that we
were to repay them in their own coin. I may mention here that we all
thought Sir Samuel a most excellent commander. He always delighted
most in a good rough-looking soldier with a long beard and greasy
haversack, who he thought was the sort of man most fit to meet the
enemy. It was chiefly owing to his dislike to dandyism that wearing
long hair with powder, whic