490 SWABEY DIARY. 
at Salamanca, from whence he had got to Celorico, and had impru- 
dently set out to get to Lisbon in conformity to the orders he received. 
I should like to see who would prescribe my death and persuade me 
to move unprovided with one single necessary for such ajourney! This 
is the way we weaken our army and reward our sick and wounded. 
Napier’s remarks concerning the French and English hospitals 
in the Peninsula are worthy of attention here.—(r.A.w.). 
“Tt is a common, yet erroneous notion, that the English system 
of hospitals in the Peninsula was admirable, and that the 
French hospitals were neglected. Strenuous and increasing 
exertions were made by Lord Wellington and the chiefs of 
the medical staff to form good hospital establishments, but 
the want of money, and still more the want of previous insti- 
tutions, foiled their utmost efforts. Now there was no point 
of warfare which more engaged Napoleon’s attention than 
the care of his sick and wounded; and being monarch as well 
as general, he furnished his hospitals with all things requisite, 
even with luxuries. 
“Under his fostering care also, Baron Larrey, justly celebrated 
were it for this alone, organized the establishment called the 
hospital ‘ Ambulance, that is to say, waggons of a peculiar 
construction, well horsed, served by men trained and incor- 
porated as soldiers, and subject to strict discipline. Re- 
warded for their courage and devotion like other soldiers, 
they were always at hand, and whether in action or on a 
march, ready to pick up, to salve, and to carry off wounded 
men ; the astonishing rapidity with which the fallen French 
soldiers disappeared from a field of battle attested the ex- 
cellence of the institution. 
“ But in the British army, the carrying away of the wounded 
depended partly upon the casual assistance of a weak waggon 
train, very badly disciplined, furnishing only three waggons to 
a division, and not originally appropriated to that service ; 
partly upon the spare commissariat animals, but principally 
upon the resources of the country, whether cf bullock carts, 
mules, or donkeys, and hence the most doleful scenes after a 
battle, or when a hospital was to be evacuated.” Napier, 
Vol. V., p. 248-9. 
14h December.—Our unfortunate patient, who now engrossed every 
spare moment, expressed his anxiety at not having heard for a long 
time from his friends. At his request we wrote to his regiment, the 
Ath, to enquire for his letters. 
15th December.—Incessant rain continuing, our men, daily exposed to 
its effects, crowd the hospital. 
16th December.—Rode in the rain in search of forage which is already 
becoming scarce, and only to be found ata distance. I find the natives 
are, with their usual apathy and ignorahce, refusing any assistance to 
