SWABEY DIARY. 257 
The French force is composed of Soult’s and Drouet’s corps and 
perhaps part of Suchet’s;! they are said to have a considerable quan- 
tity of artillery. We have 4 brigades, Captain Maxwell’s 9 pounders, 
our troop, and 2 Portuguese brigades with 2 Spanish guns. 
L9th June—Marched at daylight through Azeuchal and encamped 
at Corte de Pelas. The enemy still pressing on. 
It seems probable the following occurrences took place while 
Lieut. Swabey was with “ D” troop, we therefore insert the 
account here.—/.A. W. 
[I cannot tell whether all Military Doctors are the roguish fellows 
that some I have met are, nor do I know whether it is a general practice 
for soldiers to hold Courts Martial on each other; there are some 
crimes however which they deem dishonourable ; biting for instance, 
when a man ought to stand up in a ring for a fair fight like a Briton, and 
the punishment of these by such sentences I have sometimes known 
winked at, while such a Lynch law has not always been without its uses. 
A fellow who used his teeth in this way was sentenced by his comrades 
to lose four of his front ones, two above and two below, and the Farrier 
who was not contemptible in the art of dentistry was to carry out 
the decree. He however got shy and the Doctor was applied to, who 
very improperly varied the sentence by taking all the teeth out in a 
row from one jaw, a method which he said would render the culprit far 
more powerless for mischief than if the offending teeth had been 
extracted as it was proposed. The matter somehow was not known at 
the time and the Doctor escaped the punishment he would infallibly 
have met with had he been reported. The love of mischief is so great 
in some cases that no fear of consequences seems sufficient to prevent 
its indulgence. 
I remember once when I was in the face of the enemy, and the Doctor 
probably with the baggage, though he loved a skirmish next to extract- 
ing a ball or amputating a limb, that I was so afflicted with the 
toothache that I could not satisfactorily to myself perform my duty. 
The son of Vulcan however was there, who certainly ought to rank 
higher than the son of Aisculapius, so I called for his assistance, and 
being laid on my back the offender was extracted, whether by hammer 
and tongs or whether by the key instrument now long repudiated by all 
skilful dentists I cannot tell, but the disease which was very likely 
occasioned by a certain nervous irritation, which the smell of a French- 
man might have occasioned in a person of extreme sensibility, was 
removed, and “ Richard’s himself again.”’| 
? For his successful campaign in Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia in 1811, Suchet was created a 
Marshal and duke of Albuféra.—F.4. 1. 
35 
