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whenever it halted, being sure that something would always be left for their share. At the island of Philoe we saw mothers drowning their children, whom they could not carry away, and mutilating the girls, to save them from the violence of the soldiers.

"One of the magazines blew up, and the flames extended in every direction. The Mohammedans were without water, but they were seen extinguishing the fire with their feet and hands, and even rolling upon it in hope of smothering it with their bodies. Black and naked, they were seen running through the flames, and resembling so many fiends. During this tremendous scene there were intervals of tranquillity, and then a solitary voice was heard; it was that of their sheik, who was wholly employed in prayer, and exhorting them to fight for their faith; and these Mohammedans, amid their torments, answered him with hymns and shouts, and then rushed out against the enemy. During the night the French kept up two blazing fires against the walls, as a safer expedient than storming them; and in the morning they entered and put to the sword those who, notwithstanding they were half roasted alive, still offered resistance!"

SCENE AFTER THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR.

The sea engagement off Trafalgar, in which Lord Nelson was unhappily killed, is usually spoken of as having been a particularly glorious victory. The British had destroyed the French fleet, and great were the rejoicings accordingly. Surely much of the joy on this occasion was out of place, for it is not exactly conformable to the principles of Christianity to rejoice over the fallen, to delight in the vengeful defeat of an enemy? Perhaps this heedless spirit of gratulation would have been somewhat tempered, had the people at large seen the actual effects of the victory on the bosom of the ocean. These are described by Mr Semple, who was at the time voyaging on the coast of Spain, near Cadiz.

"As the wind," says he, "was contrary to our crossing over, the boat was obliged to make several tacks. In one of these we approached so near the shore, that we plainly discerned two dead bodies, which the sea had thrown up. Presently one of a number of men on horseback, who for this sole purpose patroled the beach, came up, and having observed the bodies, made a signal to others on foot among the bushes. Several of them came down, and immediately began to dig a hole in the sand, into which they dragged the dead.

"All this possessed something of the terrible; but in Cadiz the consequences, though equally apparent, were of a very different nature. Ten days after the battle, they were still employed in bringing ashore the wounded; and spectacles were hourly displayed at the wharfs, and through the streets, sufficient to shock every heart not yet hardened to scenes of blood and

human sufferings. When, by the carelessness of the boatmen, and the surging of the sea, the boats struck against the stone piers, a horrid cry, which pierced the soul, arose from the mangled wretches on board. Many of the Spanish gentry assisted in bringing them ashore, with symptoms of much compassion; yet, as they were finely dressed, it had something of the appearance of ostentation, if there could be ostentation at such a moment. It need not be doubted that an Englishman lent a willing hand to bear them up the steps to their litters; yet the slightest false step made them shriek out, and I even yet shudder at the remembrance of the sound.

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"On the tops of the pier the scene was affecting. wounded were carrying away to the hospitals in every shape of human misery, whilst crowds of Spaniards either assisted or looked on with signs of horror. Meanwhile their companions who escaped unhurt walked up and down with folded arms and downcast eyes, whilst women sat on heaps of arms, broken furniture, and baggage, with their heads bent between their knees. I had no inclination to follow the litters of the wounded; yet I learned that every hospital in Cadiz was already full, and the convents and churches were forced to be appropriated to the reception of the remainder.

"On leaving the harbour, I passed through the town to the Point, and still beheld the terrible effects of the battle. As far as the eye could reach, the sandy side of the isthmus bordering on the Atlantic was covered with masts and yards, the wrecks of ships, and here and there the bodies of the dead. Among others, I noticed a topmast marked with the name of the Swiftsure, and the broad arrow of England, which only increased my anxiety to know how far the English had suffered, the Spaniards still continuing to affirm that they had lost their chief admiral and half their fleet.

"While surrounded by these wrecks, I mounted the cross-trees of a mast which had been thrown ashore, and casting my eyes over the ocean, beheld, at a great distance, several masts and portions of the wreck still floating about. As the sea was almost calm, with a slight swell, the effect produced by these objects had in it something of a sublime melancholy, and touched the soul with a remembrance of the sad vicissitudes of human affairs. Though portions of floating wreck were visible from the ramparts, yet not a boat dared to venture out to examine or endeavour to tow them in, such were the apprehensions which still filled their minds of the enemy."

SIEGES IN SPAIN-SARAGOSSA.

The effort thankless and useless, as far as the wellbeing of Spain is concerned-made by the British to drive the French armies out of the peninsula, was attended with some of the most distressing events which can occur in a state of warfare. To

secure possession of the country, a number of fortified towns required to be captured, and these were exposed to the alternate assaults of both parties.

Saragossa, a strongly-fortified town on the Ebro, containing 50,000 inhabitants, and defended by a large body of Spanish soldiers, was exposed to a fierce siege by the French troops in August 1808. After much fighting and bombarding, and considerable loss on both sides, the siege commenced in earnest on the 3d of August. The breaching batteries played against two quarters of the town from within pistol-shot, and at the same time the mortar batteries threw shells into the midst of the houses. The first conspicuous effect produced was the blowing up of a powder magazine in the Cosso-a wide street or public walk in the city, extending in a long curve, like a bent bow, along the line of the old Moorish walls, with its two extremities terminating in the river. By this explosion many of the adjoining houses were shattered, and their inhabitants blown into the air. The besieged still rejecting all conditions of surrender, the murderous discharge of shells and balls was continued. On the 4th of August a breach was made through a convent upon which the batteries had been made to bear, and the French rushing in, took the guns there stationed, and forced their way through a street which ended in the Cosso. The scene was

now terrible: bands of Spaniards fighting madly in the streets with the Frenchmen, who were pouring in masses into the Cosso; others betaking themselves to the houses, from which they fired down upon the French soldiers; others, again, hurrying by the nearest ways to the opposite side of the town, where, in the attempt to reach the country, they were sure to be cut down by the French cavalry, who were scouring the vicinity. The engagement was most bloody at the point where the street of St Eugracia, by which the French had entered, joins the Cosso. The two corner buildings there were a convent and a general hospital, which served both as an infirmary and a lunatic asylum. The tide of battle gathering round these buildings, and the French soldiers having set fire to them, their inmates threw themselves out of the windows into the mêlée beneath, and it was a hideous spectacle to see the wretched lunatics from the hospital mixing among the combatants in the street, some dancing, singing, and shouting, as if glad to see such a number of people in the same state of mind as themselves; others going about, moping and drivelling, looking unmeaningly on what was passing, or cowering away in terror. Some of these poor wretches were killed, and some, it is said, were carried away as prisoners to Monte Torrero, and afterwards, when it was discovered that they were lunatics, sent back to take their chance in the siege. The battle in the streets raged all day; the French here gaining ground, there repulsed by some desperate onset of the inhabitants. When night came on, the French had overrun nearly half the

city, and were in possession of one side of the Cosso, while the Aragonese retained the other.

From this time the unfortunate town was a scene of constant and pitiless slaughter, and the streets were strewn with bodies, which could with difficulty be collected for burial. This horrible state of affairs continued for a whole week, the French endeavouring, by blowing down houses, and making desperate onsets along the streets, to gain possession of that part of the city which lay between the Cosso and the river; the Aragonese standing firm, and beating them back. At length it became evident that Verdier's force was too small for the work of capturing a city so vigorously defended; and the fortunes of war in other parts of the peninsula requiring his presence elsewhere, he obeyed orders which reached him on the 10th of August, and withdrew, leaving Saragossa untaken, but half in ruins. And so ended the first siege of Saragossa.

Too important to be let alone, this unfortunate city was again exposed to assault in December 1808, when there appeared before it a French army of 35,000 men, commanded by Marshals Moncey and Mortier. The city was on this occasion much better prepared for a defence than it had been at the time of the former siege. Not only had the citizens the recollection of the result of that siege to inspire them, and the experience acquired during it to direct them, but fortifications of various kinds had been constructed under able superintendence, and the population of the city had been organised and drilled, so as to become, as it were, one vast garrison. Monte Torrero had been fortified; the four fronts of the main city, where it was not protected by the river, were strengthened in every possible way by ramparts, ditches, palisades, and batteries, the straggling houses in the outskirts having been pulled down, and many trees felled to supply materials; and within the city itself, everything had been sacrificed for the sake of strength and military convenience. The citizens mingling with the peasants, who had flocked in for security, and with the regular forces which were in the place, forsook all their ordinary occupations, and placed themselves, their time, their property, their lives, at the disposal of the military leaders. The doors and windows of the houses were built up with brick and mortar, and instead of them, holes were made suitable for firing from; the party-walls between distinct houses were broken through, so as to open up a communication between all the houses of each isolated group or square; and the streets were dug and trenched in all directions-here a pit, there a mound. Add to this an abundant supply of ammunition and all necessaries. The artillery, indeed, was defective, there being only sixty guns above twelve-pounders; but of small arms there was a large supply. To prevent the chance of an explosion, the gunpowder was to be made as occasion required; and for this purpose the workmen were brought in from the neighbouring

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powder-mills, to manufacture the murderous dust as fast as their fellow-townsmen blew it away. A stock of six months' provisions had been laid up in the public magazines; the convents were well stored; and the citizens had also accumulated a stock sufficient for several months' consumption. Finally, the courage of the inhabitants was kept up by the strongest persuasive means. Never was a mass of men so prepared to resist an enemy.

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The first operations of the besiegers were directed against Monte Torrero, and the suburb on the left side of the river. They were successful in their attack upon the former, but were beaten back from the latter with the loss of 400 men. This took place on the 21st of December; and during the remainder of that month, and the whole of January, the attack on the main town was conducted in the usual manner, approaches being made, and batteries erected, by the besiegers, which were occasionally assailed by sallies from the town. The bombardment commenced on the 10th of January, and on the 22d, Marshal Lasnes having arrived to take the supreme command, the proceedings of the besiegers began to exhibit greater alacrity. Breaches were made in the walls in several places; and on the 29th, four columns rushing out of their trenches, burst through the ruins of the convent of St Eugracia, and amid the explosion of mines beneath their feet, and the discharge of volleys of grape-shot and musketballs from the houses, succeeded in gaining possession of part of the city within the ramparts. "The walls of Zaragoza," says Colonel Napier, "thus went to the ground, but Zaragoza herself remained erect; and as the broken girdle fell from the heroic city, the besiegers started at the view of her naked strength. The regular defences had indeed crumbled before the skill of the assailants, but the popular resistance was immediately called, with all its terrors, into action. The members of the junta, become more powerful from the cessation of regular warfare, with redoubled activity and energy urged the defence, but increased the horrors of the siege by a ferocity pushed to the very verge of frenzy. Every person, without regard to rank or age, who excited the suspicions of these ferocious men, or of those immediately about them, was instantly put to death; and, amidst the bulwarks of war, a horrid array of gibbets was to be seen, on which crowds of wretches were suspended each night, because their courage had sunk beneath the accumulating dangers of their situation, or because some doubtful expression or gesture of distress had been misconstrued by the barbarous chiefs."

Perceiving the total hopelessness of encountering a population so roused and infuriated in open battle, Marshal Lasnes resolved, says Colonel Napier, " to proceed by the slow but certain process of the mattock and the mine. The crossing of the large streets divided the town into small districts or islands of houses. To gain possession of these, it was necessary not only to mine, but to fight for each house; and each house was defended by a garrison

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