The next morning it was my duty to march them to Santander, and embark them on board a steamer for San Sebastian. But to get them ready for this was a difficult task, for many of them had not even—as I before stated—clothing to cover their nakedness. The convent was ransacked everywhere; all the old rugs were soon monopolized, and divided amongst them; and even the old parchment records which had been left by the monks, were converted into covers for decency. I never shall forget the sight, as these poor fellows slowly emerged from the convent. Numbers alone kept them going, when, perhaps, singly, each man would have died rather than have undergone such an exposure; that blush which should have for ever dyed the cheeks of their oppressors, now mantled up those of the unfortunate victims, and they bent their heads in agony as they hurried through the streets of Santander. The inhabitants, struck at the melancholy procession, murmured, as they crowded after them, “Povres Ingleses! povres Ingleses!” (poor English! poor English!) So much for the generous English, “defenders of the liberty of nations.” It was a great relief to me to see them on board. I returned to Carbon the same evening, and found those whom I had left in a state of mutiny; for two of their number had been wounded, during my absence, by the Spanish guard. One, belonging to the Lancers, had been shot through the arm; the other, one of the 6th, had received a bayonet stab in the breast. This, I was informed, was occasioned by their having strayed beyond the boundaries. I spoke to the Captain of the Spanish guard, on the cowardice of his men firing on the unarmed English. He answered me only with a shrug of the shoulder. My blood rose at his apathy—old times, when I myself had been, as it were, one of themselves, flashed across my memory, and lighted up the indignation that now stifled all thoughts of my rank and present distance. I felt as a man; and could not forbear telling him, that, had his British victims been armed, I would have made him pay dearly for his cold-blooded villainy. But the phlegmatic scoundrel had neither courage nor sympathy, and so far from granting me the satisfaction I required of him, shrunk from me with the hangman’s plea, that he had merely fulfilled orders. What most surprised me was, that the men, naked as they were, had not rushed on the Spaniards, and taken their arms from them. But on second reflection, I attributed this want of spirit to their half-starved, weakened condition—surrounded, too, as they were, by officers on whom even their claims of compatriotism seemed lost amid the general apathy to every manly feeling. I had the poor men conveyed to the general hospital, and put myself immediately in communication with Colonel Arbuthnot. But the gallant Commandant of Santander had become so completely Spanish, that no reply even was sent; and I was obliged, at last, to press the matter personally.