DON FELIX d'azARA. 19 



art of war) in the Galician regiment of infantry, 

 on the 1st September, 1764. On the 3d November, 

 1 7^57, he was gazetted ensign in the engineer corps ; 

 and on the 28th September, 1775, he was promoted 

 to the rank of lieutenant. 



It was when holding this rank, that he bore a 

 part in the Spanish attack upon Algiers. Among 

 the first of those who disembarked, he was struck by 

 a large ball, of copper, and was left as dead upon the 

 spot. The attentions, however, of a friend, and the 

 boldness of a sailor, who extracted the ball with his 

 knife, revived him ; but he afterwards experienced 

 no common degree of suffering, and ere long the third 

 part of one of his ribs was extracted. Five years 

 elapsed before the wound was healed, and five years 

 later it again broke out in America, when an addi- 

 tional portion of the rib was discharged. On the 5th 

 of February, 1 776, he attained the rank of captain. 



The following year, the courts of Spain and 

 Portugal, which were always at war concerning 

 the limits of their respective possessions in South 

 America, having fixed the basis of a treaty, which 

 was speedily afterwards ratified, commissioners were 

 appointed by both parties, to determine on the 

 spot the limits of the two countries, conformably 

 to the conditions of the treaty. " Being at St. Se- 

 bastian," says Don Felix, " in 1781, with the rank 

 of lieutenant-colonel of engineers, I received, du- 

 ring the night, an order from the General, to set 

 off immediately for Lisbon, there to present myself 

 to our ambassador. I set ofi' at daybreak, with- 



