At daybreak we followed the French, and passed through several towns on fire. We did not come up with them. This night was on outlying piquet. A little cottage by the roadside struck my fancy. I took up my abode in order to have my pound of meat cooked and to be sheltered, being rainy. The woman of the house welcomed me in and offered me her chair. She had four children lying near her literally starving. The French had robbed her of everything worth taking. Some of the soldiers cut her with their swords for endeavouring to stop them from taking away her daughter, and one villain had the meanness to return to the house and tell her, "Your children are starving; if you will give two dollars for this loaf, you shall have it." She went where the last of her money was secreted; he watched her, and took the money, abused her, and walked off. The poor creature and her children appeared so wretched; she was continually praying the English would revenge her wrongs. I did what I could to console her, and gave them some of my little stock of provisions, which, circumstanced as we are, we must, from real necessity, be very careful of, as the towns are all left by the inhabitants. It is beyond everything horrid the way these European savages have treated the unfortunate Portuguese. Almost every man they get hold of they murder. The women they use too brutally for me to describe. They even cut the throats of infants. The towns are mostly on fire—in short, they are guilty of every species of cruelty. I have seen such sights as have made me shudder with horror, and which I really could not have believed unless an eye-witness of them. It is needless for me to enter into particulars, as I could fill a volume with their barbarities. We continued marching, daily taking French sick and stragglers. If they fell by any chance into the hands of the Portuguese, they either dashed their brains out or stabbed them without ceremony. From the Portuguese they certainly deserve no quarter, for they give none. On the 9th, one company of us had some little skirmishing. The Hussars and the 16th Light Dragoons, amounting to two troops, charged double the number of French; killed and wounded fifteen and took ten horses. On the 11th we followed the enemy; two companies of ours drove them from the woods; the enemy halted at Pombal, and occupied the heights and castle. After some sharp fighting the enemy were driven from their position, on the 3rd Caçadores (pronounced _Cassadores_) coming up. One officer wounded and several men.