SWABEY DIARY. 127 
friends, unarmed and helpless, yet all these claims were dis- 
regarded.” 
“ Many of the inhabitants were emissaries of the enemy: all these 
people Carlos d’ Hspaiia slew without mercy, but of the English 
deserters who were taken, some were executed, some par- 
doned.” Napier, Vol. LV., p. 386, et seq. 
26th Janwary.—Last night an order to have a day’s provisions and 
three days’ bread delivered to the men and a route to Cazilhas de Flores 
was received. We marched at 9 o’clock and arrived at our destination 
at half-past 3 o’clock. 
[It was very much the custom amongst the simple villagers to bring 
us their sons at the age of from 15 to 17, begging us to take them as 
servants, and most useful and intelligent these lads were after a little 
training ; famous foragers and efficient interpreters. It is to be ob- 
served that there was generally a deadly feud between the Spanish and 
Portuguese lads of this sort. It was at Cazilhas de Flores that one of 
these was brought to me by his mother, and faithfully and well did he 
serve me, but he was never destined any more to be folded in the arms 
and pressed to the bosom of this tender parent. He was superior in 
hardihood to most boys, very handsome, and devoted to me as to a 
father. He lost his life one day in a bivouac; one of my horses with 
saddle and furniture on fancied he would roll, the boy to prevent injury 
to the saddle imprudently struck him, and again as he rose, when lash- 
ing out with both hind legs, the horse struck poor Manuel on the fore- 
head and he never spoke again. As I never returned to the land from 
whence he came, I had not the means of informing his mother of his 
fate. 
I resolved that as this had been the first so it should be the last boy 
that I protected, but it was not so destined, for a Spanish lad attached 
himself to me in a cantonment, and though I declined all engagement, 
I found him one day with my baggage mules, where he would remain. 
In the retreat from Salamanca he too perished, more naturally indeed 
than the other, for he was worn out by ague and fatigue, and his bones 
were left on the road not far from Ciudad Rodrigo, and viewed 
perhaps by the French with as much indifference as their remains 
would have been by us]. 
27th Janwary.—Captain Macdonald joined us at Cazilhas de Flores 
to-day. The reports of the cause of our move are that the French have 
appeared in force in front of Salamanca. 
28th January.—We learnt to-day that Marmont was so much in want 
of intelligence concerning Rodrigo that the cause of his appearance was 
actually to endeavour to throw into ib 200 car loads of supplies, and the 
first he knew of its being taken was on his advanced parties’ recon- 
noitring the light division; he has now retired. 
29th January.—General Craufurd is dead of his wound. Ag an 
example of the thoughtlessness of soldiers, one was fortunate enough ~ 
to find in Rodrigo £300 in dollars and employed it in treating the 
company he belongs to with a skin of wine every day as long as it lasted. 
I should here explain that instead of casks the Spaniards and Portu- 
guese sew the skin of a pig together and keep their liquor in it. 
