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strangulation. The ear could nowhere escape the groans of the 

 dying, nor the eye avoid these shocking spectacles; but why 

 should language attempt to describe distress, which the conduct 

 of the sufferers paints in more vivid colours? These poor 

 wretches, formerly subjects of a sovereign whose soul never knew 

 mercy, nor felt for human woe when the victorious flag of Britain 

 first waved on the ramparts of Onore, fled to it as an asylum from 

 the sultaun's oppressions, and received protection: yet now did 

 these devoted beings, snatching a transient degree of strength 

 from despair, crawl into the public road, and waiting there until 

 the commanding officer went his evening rounds, prostrated 

 themselves at his feet, imploring permission to quit this dreadful 

 scene, and, as a lighter evil, meet the vengeance of an incensed 

 tyrant. Their prayer was granted, and the same principle of 

 national honour, which originally insured them protection, was 

 now extended for their safety. Proper persons were appointed 

 to see them go out in small parties, after it was dark, hoping by 

 this precaution, that such as were not too much exhausted to reach 

 the enemy's lines unperceived, might from their deplorable con- 

 dition excite the commiseration of the centinels at the out-posts, 

 and ultimately reach the distant villages. 



The following morning presented a dreadful spectacle. On 

 the preceding evening eighty-eight of the inhabitants, men, 

 women, and children, had been permitted to leave the fort; but were 

 so entirely exhausted, that their route to the sultaun's trenches 

 was traced by a line of dead bodies, with the more aggravated spec- 

 tacle of living infants sucking the breasts of their dead mothers. A 

 venerable Portugueze priest, who had for many years been vicar of 



