252 SWABEY DIARY. 
Almaraz, midway between Badajos and Madrid, 80 miles from 
the former, 96 miles from the latter, 30 miles from Truxillo, and 
60 miles from Merida, situated on the right bank of the Tagus. 
This, consisting of Fort Napoleon, strongly fortified, with 
double ditch, and armed with 18 twenty-four pounders, and 
other ordnance, and connected by a floating bridge with a 
battery of 6 guns on the opposite side of the river, possessing 
a numerous garrison well supplied with all kinds of stores, 
and being in the general route from the grand arsenal at 
Seville, via Badajos, Truxillo, and Toledo to Madrid, was an 
obstacle of immediate consideration, the destruction of which 
was confided to Lieut.-General Sir R. Hill who marched his 
division from Almandralejo, and issued orders for his 1st 
brigade to attack fort Napoleon by storm on the night of 
the 18th or before daylight on the 19th of May 1812.” 
“Storming of Fort Napoleon, Almaraz,” by Capt. McCarthy, 
late 50th Regiment. 
25th May.—Wrote away part of the morning. The heat here being 
excessive, ague and fever begin to make their appearance among the 
men. 
Whilst we were sitting after dinner a man with a musket came run- 
ning in requesting the help of mounted men to catch some Banditti who 
had it appeared had escaped from him and 20 Spanish soldiers. Seeing 
Major Macdonald! and Wemys the aide-de-camp? mounted, I got on 
my horse and joined in the pursuit with 7 or 8 Dragoons. We fairly 
rode them down after a chase of three miles, one of them firing at and 
wounding a Spaniard; they did not dare to fire on us but surrendered 
and were brought into the town. On investigating the matter we 
found they had regular passports and cargoes on their mules, and it 
appeared to me that the soldiers who came for assistance had attacked 
them, but they not choosing to give up their property, had fired and 
gone off; we set them at liberty. 
The abuses committed by the Spanish soldiers are from their manner 
of obtaining supplies very great, and the civil authority is so inefficient 
that without soldiery they cannot collect the required rations. They 
dread the French, who, in case of defalcation on the part of an in- 
dividual, when a requisition is made, post a sentry at his door obliging 
him to pay a dollar an hour till his quota is made good, and to 
feed the whole guard thus let loose on him. In consequence of the 
difficulty with which the supply of the Spanish forces is attended, they 
are obliged, to the great inconvenience and danger of the service, to 
divide armies into small bodies and quarter them in numerous canton- 
ments. ‘The soldiers, deserted by more than the nominal authority of 
the civil government, enforce their requisitions with the bayonet, and 
seize on what they can get, by which means more is often levied on the 
poor than the rich, or at all events no just proportion can be observed. 
The men employed in pressing mules and transport have frequently 
1 Major D. Macdonald, 92nd Regiment. 
2 To Lieut,-General Sir Wm. Erskine, 
