The _juiz de fore_ of Santarem sent a peasant to give information that the enemy had retired through the place at two o'clock this morning and were in full retreat. The Light Division followed the enemy at daybreak and entered Santarem, where we remained about an hour. How different this town now appeared; when I last was in it all was gaiety and happiness, and the shops abounding with every luxury, and a smile upon every one's face; but now the houses are torn and dilapidated, and the few miserable inhabitants, moving skeletons; the streets strewn with every description of household furniture, half-burnt and destroyed, and many streets quite impassable with filth and rubbish, with an occasional man, mule, or donkey rotting and corrupting and filling the air with pestilential vapours. My heart ached as I passed through it. We marched to Pernes. The enemy had blown up the bridge over the river Pernes, which was repaired by Captain Todd, Royal Staff Corps. The poor inhabitants had been persuaded to remain by Marshal Junot, under fair promises, but they ill performed these assertions. The houses were nearly all unroofed, and the people in a starving condition. Two young ladies had been brutally violated in a house that I entered, and were unable to rise from a mattress of straw. On the line of march, comparing notes with other officers, I found that they all had some mournful story to relate of the savage French Vandals which had come under their immediate observation. [Sidenote: 7th] Followed the enemy's rear-guard to Torres Novas, and halted near La Marrosa. The Horse Artillery and Royal Dragoons came up with the French rear-guard and harassed it. We passed several of the enemy's killed and wounded men upon the road as we advanced. The unfortunate inhabitants that have remained in their villages have the appearance of people who have been kicked out of their graves and reanimated, and the sight of them rouses the fiercest passions within us, and will make us, when we come up with the enemy, take ample vengeance upon them for their unheard-of and disgusting cruelties to this unfortunate nation. O happy England! surrounded by an element over which thy sons in their wooden walls triumphantly sway, and on thy happy shores the arms of that tyrant who has deluged Europe in blood can have no influence. May it ever be so is my earnest prayer! [Sidenote: 8th] Light Division marched at daybreak, and came up with sixty sick Frenchmen upon donkeys in a wretched plight from disease and fever. We followed the rear-guard to Venda dos Carvalhos. The enemy moved off when we came in sight. The cavalry and Horse Artillery pressed them so hard that the enemy blew up four tumbrils and destroyed a quantity of gun tackling. [Sidenote: 9th]