I beg to apologise for here intruding what may be looked upon as a digression; but mentioning information to be obtained from deserters, has brought to my recollection the extraordinary circumstance--at least I consider it as such--that it should have fallen to my lot, to have had the lieutenant of my company desert to the enemy; the only instance of the kind I ever heard of in the British army. It occurred just before our advancing in pursuit of the French, from what were considered the lines of Torres Vedras. I do not know in what part of Ireland Mr. B---- first saw the light, but he had been sent in early life to Salamanca, to be brought up for the Roman Catholic priesthood. It was, however, I suppose, found that he was unfit for that calling; at least, I understood that he had never been ordained; and having married, some person had most unwarrantably taken it upon himself to recommend him for an ensigncy in the army, for which he was still more unfit than to be a priest, for he was both vulgar in looks and manners; but as he spoke Spanish, and some Portuguese, and announcing himself wherever he went as a good Catholic, he got on, though very ignorant and illiterate, famously, both with the priests and people of Portugal. But he had, on one occasion, very nearly, in that country, come to an untimely end; for having been sent off, in order to get him away from the regiment, with part of the 3rd division's "advanced guard of infamy"--that is to say--the soldiers' wives, whom it was found necessary to send to the rear, in consequence of the depredations they daily committed; these Amazons, headed by a well known character, rose upon him with the most diabolical intentions, as some may remember, for the circumstance was much laughed at at the time, and he only escaped from their clutches, by jumping out of a window, at the risk of breaking his neck.