roll and horrid explosion of the powder barrels, the whizzing flight of the blazing splinters, the loud exhortations of the officers, and the continual clatter of the muskets, made a maddening din. Now a multitude bounded up the great breach, as if driven by a whirlwind; but across the top glittered a range of sword-blades, sharp-pointed, keen-edged on both sides, and firmly fixed in ponderous beams, which were chained together, and set deep in the ruins; and for ten feet in front, the ascent was covered with loose planks, studded with sharp iron points, on which the feet of the foremost being set, the planks moved, and the unhappy soldiers falling forward on the spikes, rolled down upon the ranks behind. Then the Frenchmen, shouting at the success of their stratagem, and leaping forward, plied their shot with terrible rapidity; for every man had several muskets, and each musket, in addition to the ordinary charge, contained a small cylinder of wood stuck full of leaden slugs, which scattered like hail when they were discharged."

In vain did the men, clambering over the treacherous planks, dash against the spiky barrier which guarded the breach. In vain did the rear, all other feelings annihilated in the rage of arrested onset, push on the front, blunting the spikes with the writhing and wriggling bodies of their own comrades; the barrier was immovable, and the fleshy sheath was useless. In vain did some try to squeeze their way through the spikes underneath -their heads were pounded to pieces by the butt-ends of French muskets. Thus was the mass gathered in the ditch, heaving idly to and fro a roaring human swarm, from which gunpowder lightnings from above, and gunpowder explosions from beneath, were shredding off incessant ragged fragments. Never since the invention of gunpowder had its blasting terrors been so displayed. There, within a few acres of God's earth, chalked out of the darkness of night, were tongues of fire darting to and fro through the black air, each tongue winged by human hatred, and licking up its patch of human life! Ah! and in this Miltonic contest, which side was the angelic?

Two hours having been spent in vain efforts, "the soldiers," says Colonel Napier, "became convinced that the breach of La Trinidad was impregnable. Gathering in dark groups, and leaning on their muskets, they looked up at it with sullen desperation, while the enemy, stepping out on the ramparts, and aiming their shots by the light of the fireballs which they threw over, asked, as their victims fell, Why they did not come into Badajoz?' In this dreadful situation, while the dead were lying in heaps, and others continually falling, the wounded crawling about to get some shelter from the merciless fire above, and withal a sickening stench proceeding from the burnt flesh of the slain," an attempt was made to force an entrance into the other bastion, that of Santa Maria. This attempt likewise failed. It was now zmidnight. Two thousand men had fallen, and Badajoz was yet to

win. Wellington, during the two awful hours, had been listening to the roar of conflict from a height near some quarries. At midnight an officer came and reported to him the capture of the castle. "Who brings that intelligence?" said Wellington, looking up. "Lieutenant Tyler," was the reply. "Ah, Tyler! well, but are you sure, sir?" "I entered the castle with the troops, have but just left it, and left General Picton there." With how many men?" "His whole division." "Well, return, sir, and bid General Picton maintain his position at all hazards.” On receiving the welcome intelligence, Wellington sent orders to the surviving troops in the ditch to retire, and form again for a second assault, which he anticipated might be more successful than the first. Accordingly, the stormers retreated from the ditch; not, however, without additional carnage from the enemy's fire.

The fate of the town, however, already decided by the capture of the castle, was precipitated by the success of one of the other attacks, which, it had been arranged, should be made simultaneously with those on the castle and the bastions of Trinidad and Santa Maria. Quite at the other side of the town from the place at which the terrific contest which we have been describing had been raging, was a bastion called San Vincente, which Lord Wellington had directed to be escaladed. After crossing the ditch through the enemy's fire, the assailing party made the attempt; but the walls being thirty feet high, they found their ladders to be too short. A spot, however, was at length discovered where, in consequence of an embrasure, in which fortunately also there was no gun, the height was only about twenty feet; and as at that instant the defenders of the bastion were thinned by the departure of some of them to assist in retaking the castle, the assailants were able to place their ladders with less opposition. The ascent, however, was difficult; and the ladders were so much too short, that the first man had to be pushed up by those beneath him, and then to assist in pulling the others up. Still the bastion was entered; and after a desperate fight, and a panic occasioned by the cry that there was a mine beneath them, the troops forced their way into the town, and rushed through the streets in order to reach the breaches on the other side, where, coming upon the rear of the defenders, they would drive them off, and let their fellow-soldiers in. Guided by the distant sound at the breaches, they pushed on. The streets were deserted, and brilliantly lighted. No one sought to impede their march; only now and then a lattice was opened gently, as if some woman were peeping timidly out; and a sound of people whispering was heard inside the houses. Through this city of enchantment the troops advanced, their British bugles sounding, towards the roar and the crash on the ramparts. In their way they overtook some mules carrying ammunition to the breaches. A few combats took place as they approached the decisive spot; but the struggle was

soon over.

The garrison dispersed through the streets, and the brave Phillipon escaped to San Christoval, where he surrendered next day. The bugles rung out their notes of triumph from castle and bastion, and Badajoz was conquered.

Alas! the whole is not yet told. "Now," says Colonel Napier, "commenced that wild and desperate wickedness which tarnished the lustre of the soldier's heroism. All, indeed, were not alikefor hundreds risked, and many lost their lives in striving to stop the violence; but the madness generally prevailed, and all the dreadful passions of human nature were displayed. Shameless rapacity, brutal intemperance, savage lust, cruelty and murder, shrieks and piteous lamentations, groans, shouts, imprecations, the hissing of fires bursting from houses, the crashing of doors and windows, and the reports of muskets used in violence, resounded for two days and nights in the streets of Badajoz! On the third, when the city was sacked, when the soldiers were exhausted by their own excesses, the tumult rather subsided than was quelled A gallows was erected in the principal square of the town, on which, by Wellington's orders, several soldiers were hanged before order could be restored among the rest.

Such was the memorable assault of Badajoz on the night between the 6th and 7th of April 1812. In that night fell 3500 men; a number which, added to the losses sustained during the previous days of the siege, made the entire loss at Badajoz amount to 5000. Five generals were wounded in the assault, and an immense number of officers were among the killed. At the breaches alone, upwards of 2000 men were sacrificed. How awful must have been the havoc of that night, may be judged from the fact, that Wellington himself, with all his iron firmness, could not contain himself when the extent of the loss was reported to him, but gave way we use the words of the narrator to a burst of passionate grief!

CONCLUSION.

The preceding sketches, impressive in some respects as they are, afford, after all, but a faint idea of the miseries and losses incurred by a state of warfare. It has been calculated that in fifty battles fought by Cæsar, there were killed, one way and another, two millions of human beings; and if we assign an equal number to Alexander, and double the number to Napoleon, which we are fairly entitled to do, then to three military butchers may be ascribed the untimely and violent death of eight millions of the human family! To the many smaller actors, however, in the drama of war, an infinitely greater amount of slaughter may be ascribed, and with the same fruitless results. The insane love of military glory, thirst for acquiring territory, and vulgar tyranny and ambition, have unitedly destroyed more lives than it would be possible to reckon,

Between the years 1000 and 1815, there were twenty-four different wars between England and France, twelve between England and Scotland, eight between England and Spain, and seven with other countries-in all, fifty-one wars. The utter

uselessness of most of these savage encounters, as respects any good end accomplished, and the enormous cost of lives and property at which they were conducted, are melancholy matters of history. During the eight centuries above specified, England did not enjoy one hundred years of peace. It was pretty nearly always fighting with one country or another; and justice compels us to say its wars were more generally caused by its own arrogant assumption of authority than by any aggression on its rights. Scotland, Holland, and France have been successively its butt. Ambitious, irascible, and jealous of power, it has never been long at peace with its neighbours. We are ashamed to mention the reasons for some of its declarations of war; yet it is important that the rising generation should be acquainted with the truth. In 1664, only four years after the restoration of Charles II., that monarch declared war against Holland-the country which had sheltered him in adversity-on pretences so frivolous, that we must ascribe the real cause of quarrel to a mean jealousy of the Dutch commercial prosperity. Two English ships had been taken by the Dutch; and though they offered to make a proper compensation, Charles would not accept it, but immediately proceeded to hostilities. After three years of war, during which great damage was mutually done, both sides were equally weary of the contest, and a peace was concluded at Breda in July 1667. The next great folly in which England was concerned, was a war got up by William III. against Louis XIV. in 1689, and for no other assignable reason than a wish to humble the pride of the French king. In 1697, after a bloody and expensive war of eight years, a peace was concluded at Ryswick, no object whatever having been gained. The pride of Louis XIV. had not been in the least degree humbled. This idiotic war cost England twenty-one and a half millions of pounds, and one hundred thousand men! The exportation of food to feed the army of William and his allies caused a dearth, which led to fearful sufferings among the people. In Scotland alone eighty thousand poor persons died of want.

When Queen Anne ascended the throne in 1702, she proceeded to prosecute the design which her predecessor had formed-to humble the pride of the Bourbon family, by depriving Philip of the crown of Spain, and compelling the French king to adhere to the second treaty of partition. Accordingly, war was declared against France in May 1702 by England, Holland, and Germany; and after it had been prosecuted eleven years, with various success, a peace was concluded, and signed at Utrecht, on the 11th of April 1713. But the grand object for which the war had been undertaken was finally aban

doned. King Philip was left in quiet possession of the Spanish

crown.

During this war, one of the most complete victories was obtained over the French that ever was recorded in history. Ten thousand French and Bavarians were slain in the field of battle; the greater part of thirty squadrons of dragoons were drowned in the Danube; 30,000 men were made prisoners of war, including 1200 officers; 100 pieces of cannon were taken, together with twenty-four mortars, 129 colours, 171 standards, 3600 tents, thirty-four coaches, 300 laden mules, two bridges of boats, fifteen boxes and eight casks of silver. But notwithstanding these signal acquisitions, the nation was a considerable loser; for the expense of the war, as stated by Sir John Sinclair, amounted to £43,360,003, which made a serious addition to the national debt, and to the taxes that were laid on the people to pay the interest of it.

During the reign of George II. a war was begun, in the latter end of 1739, between England on one side, and France and Spain on the other, which terminated in a peace at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, after a contest of nine years. The expenses of this war are stated at £46,418,689.

Notwithstanding the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (which concluded a war in which nothing was gained by any party but the experience of each other's strength and resources), peace was not of long continuance. The cessation of hostilities was only an interval of repose, in which the nation might recruit its strength to fight again. In 1754-5, a dispute arising between England and France concerning a tract of land in the back parts of America, each party charging the other as the aggressor, involved the two nations in an eight years' contest; when, as an eloquent writer observes, had the parties interested alone been consulted, a jury of twelve men might have settled the diffe

rence.

At length the resources of England were nearly exhausted; men could not be procured without great difficulty, and the enormous sums required to continue the war became oppressive upon the people. In plain terms, both sides were so weakened with the loss of blood and treasure, that they could fight no longer, and a peace was concluded in February 1763.

This war is said to have been the most fortunate in which England ever engaged; 100 ships of war were destroyed or taken from the enemy, and £12,000,000 sterling acquired in plunder, besides immense acquisitions on the continent of North America. But these victories and successes cost the nation £111,271,996 sterling, and two hundred and fifty thousand lives! Such was the indemnity which England obtained for the past!

England was not long permitted to enjoy the blessings of peace and prosperity. In the course of recovering her natural strength and affluence, she was again interrupted by the un

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