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“The hospital presented a more dreadful scene, for it was a scene of human suffering: friend and enemy had been indiscriminately carried thither, and were there alike neglected. On the third day after the assault, many of them had received neither surgical assistance nor food of any kind, and it became necessary to remove them on the fifth, when the flames approached the building. Much of this neglect would have been unavoidable, even if that humane and conscientious diligence which can be hoped for from so few, had been found in every individual belonging to the medical department, the number of the wounded being so great; and little help could be received from the other part of the army, because it had been engaged in action on the same day.”
[248] San Sebastian was won. Would that its horrors had ended with its storm! but the scenes that followed were terrible. The sky became suddenly overcast—thunder was heard above the din of battle—and mortal fury mingled with an elemental uproar. Darkness came on; but houses wrapped in flames directed the licentious soldiery to plunder, and acts of violence still more horrible. The storms of Badajoz and Rodrigo were followed by the most revolting excesses; yet they fell infinitely short of those committed after San Sebastian was carried by assault. “Some order was first maintained, but the resolution of the troops to throw off discipline was quickly made manifest. A British staff officer was pursued with a volley of small arms, and escaped with difficulty from men who mistook him for the provost-martial of the 5th division; a Portuguese adjutant, who endeavoured to prevent some atrocity, was put to death in the market-place, not with sudden violence from a single ruffian, but deliberately by a number of English soldiers. Many officers exerted themselves to preserve order: many men were well-conducted, but the rapine and violence commenced by villains soon spread, the camp-followers crowded into the place, and the disorder continued, until the flames following the steps of the plunderer put an end to his ferocity by destroying the whole town.”
“This storm seemed to be the signal of hell for the perpetration of villany which would have shamed the most ferocious barbarians of antiquity. At Ciudad Rodrigo intoxication and plunder had been the principal object; at Badajoz lust and murder were joined to rapine and drunkenness; but at San Sebastian, the direst, the most revolting cruelty was added to the catalogue of crimes. One atrocity, of which a girl of seventeen was the victim, staggers the mind by its enormous, incredible, indescribable barbarity.”—Napier.
[249] “A plunging shot struck the ground near the spot where Sir James was standing, rebounded, struck him on the chest, and laid him prostrate and senseless. The officers near thought that certainly he was killed; but he recovered breath, and then recollection, and, resisting all entreaties to quit the field, continued to issue his orders.”—Southey.
[250] “I am quite certain that the use of mortars and howitzers in a siege, for the purpose of what —— calls general annoyance, answers no purpose whatever against a Spanish place occupied by French troops, excepting against the inhabitants of the place; and eventually, when we shall get the place, against ourselves, and the convenience we should derive from having the houses of the place in a perfect state of repair. If —— intended to use his mortars and howitzers against any particular work occupied by the enemy, such as the cavalier, their use would answer his purpose. If he knew exactly where the enemy’s intrenchment was situated, their use might answer his purpose. I say might, because I recollect that, at the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, our trenches were bombarded by eleven or thirteen large mortars and howitzers for ten days, in which time thirteen thousand shells were thrown, which occasioned us but little loss, notwithstanding that our trenches were always full, and, I may safely say, did not impede our progress for one moment.”—Wellington’s Despatches.
[251] General Rey.
[252] “On the 10th, the Portuguese were formed in the streets of the ruined city, the British on the ramparts. The day was fine, after a night of heavy rain. About noon the garrison marched out at the Mirador gate. The bands of two or three Portuguese regiments played occasionally, but altogether it was a dismal scene, amid ruins and vestiges of fire and slaughter,—a few inhabitants were present, and only a few.
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“Many of the French soldiers wept bitterly; there was a marked sadness in the countenance of all, and they laid down their arms in silence. The commandant of the place had been uniformly attentive to the officers who had been prisoners. When this kindness was now acknowledged, he said that he had been twice a prisoner in England; that he had been fifty years in the service, and on the 15th of the passing month he should have received his dismission; he was now sixty-six, he said, an old man, and should never serve again; and if he might be permitted to retire into France, instead of being sent into England, he should be the happiest of men. Sir Thomas Graham wrote to Lord Wellington in favour of the kind-hearted old man, and it may be believed that the application was not made in vain.