n, including
myself, waited in ambush for the Indians, having a reserve placed a
short distance down the lane in case of a combat. The Indians soon
approached, but seemed to have some misgivings, though we could not
exactly understand what they said. There being only a few of us, not
quite twenty in all, I rather shook in my shoes on seeing their
number; but we soon found there was very little occasion for this, for
on our firing directly the front party had passed the gate, killing
two of them and wounding and capturing their chief, who was the one
who was so proud of his head, the rest fled for their lives, not
liking the smell and much less the taste of our gunpowder. We picked
up the wounded man and carried him, and left him, more dead than
alive, in a neighbouring village.

On nearing Buenos Ayres the Light Brigade was ordered on in front,
under the command of Colonel Pack, who soon succeeded in taking the
Bull Ring battery; for Buenos Ayres was much more easy to take than
Monte Video, as it was very slightly fortified towards the country.
There were some cannons placed at the end of each street, but they
proved a very small difficulty to be overcome, as there seemed nobody
efficient to work them, and after passing these, our soldiers were soon
in possession of the city. Then they hoisted the King's flag on a
convent and waited, expecting every minute that the body of our army
would come up; but instead of this, General Whitelock encamped about a
mile out of the town and remained there. If he had attended properly
to his business he would have followed up and relieved the brigade;
but as it was, the Spaniards rallied and overpowered it. I was with
the main body, and so was not able to enter the city to see what was
going on. We all fell under arms when we heard the muskets at work,
waiting for the general's orders to advance: but there we lay the
whole night, not doing a stroke, and next day we re-embarked for Monte
Video, having come to some terms, though we were ignorant of that at
the time.

We remained at Monte Video some two months longer, during which
interval the ships taken in the harbour were offered for sale, but the
inhabitants refusing to buy them, we loaded some ourselves with hides,
tallow, and cocoa, and the rest, which were not worth bringing home,
were towed out to the mouth of the harbour and set on fire. The
Spaniards had previously blown up a very fine frigate to prevent it
falling into our h