[370] See the letter of Charles Vaughan deploring the ‘beastly necessity of firing into the poor devils’ quoted by Napier in his Appendix, vol. ii. p. 482. For a narrative by one of the escaping French officers see the Mémoires of Colonel Chalbrand.
[371] Nothing can be more distressing reading than the chronicles of the Cabrera prisoners, Ducor, Guillemard, Gille and others. Actual cannibalism is said to have occurred during the longest of the spells of fasting caused by the non-arrival of provisions. [See Gille, p. 240.]
[372] See pp. [213-14] of this volume and p. [246].
[373] See pp. [215-16] of this volume.
[374] See Wellington Dispatches, v. p. 292, &c., and Stanhope’s Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, pp. 10 and 23.
[375] For strange and scandalous details of Sebastiani’s doings in Murcia, see Schepeler, iii. pp. 566-7.
[376] Martinien’s lists show that the 40th regiment of Girard’s division lost four officers at Albondonates, and the 64th the same number at Grazalema—so the skirmishes must have been fairly vigorous.
[377] That Lacy’s force was not so entirely destroyed as Napier implies is shown by the fact that many of the same regiments could be utilized for the subsequent expedition to the Condado de Niebla.
[378] For illustrative anecdotes of warfare in the Serrania de Ronda, see the autobiography of Rocca of the 2nd Hussars, who was busy in this region in the spring and summer of 1810.