156 The Eve of Saint Simon, in Colombia. Aua. 



refused to receive it in exchange for the requisite articles of consumption 

 until Paez threatened to shoot the recusant ; and even then the enhanced 

 price of provisions bore no comparison with the fictitious value of this 

 spurious coin, and the English were therefore still unable to obtain the 

 common necessaries of existence. 



Meanwhile, the good money furnished from the exchequer for the 

 express purpose of carrying Bolivar's order into effect was by Paez 

 (with an occasional sop in the pan thrown to one or two of the superior 

 British officers to keep them quiet) distributed amongst his tawny-co- 

 loured satellites ; nor was it an unusual sight to behold the gambling- 

 tables before alluded to covered with doubloons and " pesos duros" and 

 of which our famished soldiers well knew they should have been the legal 

 possessors. A pound of bad beef had, for a considerable period, been 

 the only diurnal ration received by our brave comrades, and many of the 

 officers were reduced to the necessity of parting with their wearing- 

 apparel ; the " sambo," or mulatto purchaser, parading his uncomely 

 figure, arrayed in all the glitter of gold and silver embroidery, and tri- 

 umphing in the spoil, in the presence even of its former owner. Splendid 

 uniforms changed wearers with surprising rapidity ; and many a youth- 

 ful " petit-maitre" was happy to shelter himself from the scorching rays 

 of a tropical sun, or the furious pelting of the merciless shower, beneath 

 the once-despised but now coveted blanket. A considerable quantity of 

 clothing, boots, shoes, &c. had arrived from England and the United 

 States for the use of the troops. These were surreptitiously disposed of 

 by the " administrador"* to the merchant-pedlars who followed the army 

 and preyed upon its vitals, and the produce of the sale speedily found its 

 way to the hazard table; whilst the British soldier was not only suffered 

 to wander about destitute and bare-footed, but otherwise literally in a 

 state of nudity ! Such, however, was the excellent discipline of the corps, 

 that notwithstanding these just motives of disaffection to a cause which 

 they had been induced to espouse from the most flattering anticipations, 

 the men still continued to perform their various military avocations, if 

 not with cheerful alacrity, at least with mechanical steadiness, until a cir- 

 cumstance (which I am about to relate) occurred, and roused their dor- 

 mant feelings to an acute sense of the degradation they had so long 

 laboured under. 



General Paez requiring some alteration to be made in part of his 

 dress, sent an orderly to command the immediate attendance of one of 

 the British regimental tailors. The poor devil was in the act of masti- 

 cating his hard beef when the general's mandate reached him ; and not 

 over anxious, possibly, to work without any chance of remuneration, 

 neglected to obey quite so promptly as Paez expected. The general, 

 irritated by what he qualified an act of insolent insubordination, despatched 

 an aide-de-camp to Colonel Blosset, directing him forthwith to compli- 

 ment the refractory tailor with a hundred lashes ! That officer, feeling 

 the injustice of the order, lost no time in waiting upon Paez, and respect- 

 fully stated, that by the English articles of war (under which code the 

 " British legion" had been embodied, and to which, by Bolivar's sanc- 

 tion, they could be alone amenable) he was prohibited from inflicting 

 corporal punishment except by the sentence of a court-martial ; but if 

 his excellency thought proper he would immediately summon one, and 



* " Administrator/' commissary. 



