84 SWABEY DIARY. 
the 14th March, 1811, when the French were forced to retreat, 
the English army advanced, and the campaign of 1811 ensued, 
See Napier, Vol. 3, pp. 362-877. 
Santarem is, for its size, a fine city, preferable to Lisbon, it is full of 
convents and churches, from whence the fair inhabitants, as well as 
the plate and ornaments have been stolen, and every step presents a 
ruin. We were fortunate in our quarters, occupying a large episcopal 
house which had been Masséna’s head-quarters. I bathed in the Tagus 
towards evening. 
The Duke of Leinster, Lord H. Fitzgerald, and Lord Delewarr par- 
took of sowpe and bowillc with us, and were glad enough to do so. . 
15th September.—I was employed the whole of this day in arranging 
the issue of provisions, which had been very irregularly conducted. 
Bathed in the Tagus and commenced a letter to my father. 
16th September.—Having more time to look about me, visited the 
positions where the sentries, or rather stumps of trees doing duty as 
sentries, still threaten the opposite brush-wood. I shot with Taylor and 
killed four quails, which bird abounds here, but the heat by Fahren- 
heit’s thermometer being 97°, we could not make much of a walk of it. 
Harding was attacked very sharply with dysentery, and the sick list 
increased. I did not mention in its proper place that Dyneley was left 
at Lisbon for the benefit of his health, and that some of our men, on 
the night of the 9th, being in the act of stealing grapes, were attacked 
in a vineyard at Sacavem, they drew their swords, and two of them, 
Goff and Phillips, were slightly wounded, Lowrey and meee severely 
so, the latter’ died whilst being carried to Lisbon. ; 
17th September.—Marched at 4 o’clock, before agitate over a flat 
country filled with quails, and principally producing hemp, which is 
spun by the women in every village: this is performed without a wheel, 
being twined round a stick, as thread or cotton is; this they do through 
habit so quickly that a wheel is unnecessary. 
Our destination was Golega, where I got very excellent quarters, the 
patron! or master of the head-quarter billet came to pay his respects, 
and spoke some French and Latin. Taylor and I got round him and 
teazed him with questions, he denied the excesses of the French, which 
needed no other testimony than the universal desolation of the place. 
We found our rations, a pint of wine and a pound of beef per man, 
suffice very well, and, indeed, neu else but a few eee was to be 
had. : 
18th September —Mentad very cal hate fae eo et Banik, 
and for the first time had a specimen of Portuguese hills. On the 
march, near Punhete, the road joins the river Tagus, which is here 
extremely picturesque and beautiful, the trees coming down to its 
banks and meeting the water’s edge. We passed over an arm of the 
Tagus, at Punhete, by the bridge of boats, which, being removed in 
the rainy part of the year, is a great impediment to the advance to 
1The master of the house in which an officer was billeted was called the ‘‘ patron.’ —F.4.W. 
