After the destruction of Gonzolo bridge, when the 52nd Regiment marched into Benevente, though benumbed with wet and cold, yet they could not procure a single pint of wine for the men, either for love or money, or for mere humanity which under such circumstances would have moved the breast of most men to an act of charitable generosity. During the anxious pleading to the feelings and the dogged denial, a sergeant of his company came to Lieutenant Love, of the above-mentioned regiment, informing him that in an outhouse belonging to the convent in which they were billeted he discovered a wall recently built up, by which he conjectured that some wine might have been concealed. Love instantly waited on the friars, whom he entreated to let the men have some wine, at the same time offering prompt payment. The holy fat father abbot constantly declared, by a long catalogue of saints, that there was not a drop in the convent. Love, although a very young man at the time, was not easily imposed upon. Reconnoitring the premises, he had a rope tied round his body, and in this manner got himself lowered through a sort of skylight down into the outhouse, where the sergeant had discovered the fresh masonry through a crevice in the strongly barricaded door. After his landing, the rope was drawn up, and two men of the company followed in the same manner. They fortunately found a log of wood, which, aided by the ropes, they converted into a battering ram, and four or five strong percussions well directed breached the newly built wall. Now rushing through the breach, they found the inner chamber to be the very sanctum sanctorum of Bacchus. Wine sufficient was found to give every man in the company a generous allowance. The racy juice was contained in a large vat, and while they were issuing it out in perfect order to the drenched and shivering soldiers, the fat prior suddenly made his appearance through a trap-door, and laughingly requested that at least he might have one drink before all was consumed. Upon this one of the men remarked, “By Jove! when the wine was _his_, he was damned stingy about it; but now that it is _ours_, we will show him what British hospitality is, and give him his fill.” So saying, he seized the holy fat man, and chucked him head foremost into the vat; and had it not been for Love and some other officers, who by this time had found their way into the cellar, the Franciscan worshipper of Bacchus would most probably have shared the fate of George Duke of Clarence, except that the wine was not Malmsey.