The heat of the weather was intense and dreadfully affected our wounds. The scarcity of doctors too, and the fear of falling into the hands of the enemy, spurred every one forward, and so took up the moments that the surgeons had not time sufficient nor opportunity to look after us. The consequence was, that this neglect caused maggots to be engendered in the sores, and the bandages, when withdrawn, brought away on them lumps of putrid flesh and maggots. Many died on board, and numbers were reduced in consequence to the necessity of amputation. By care and syringing sweet oil into my wounds, I however had managed to get rid of them. At Figueras we embarked on board some transports that there waited our arrival, and we sailed for Lisbon, where, in a short time, we landed, and borne on stretchers by some men of the Ordinanza or Portuguese Militia, were conveyed to the hospital. From regular and kind treatment there, I soon recovered; and the British army retired towards Lisbon. It may perhaps be necessary, before I continue my personal narrative, to observe, that Lord Wellington, finding his numbers greatly unequal to the enemy was obliged to retreat. This, it is well known, he directed in a very skilful manner, having long before anticipated the probability of such an event by the erection of the lines of Torres Vedras. During the retreat, his Lordship ordered the people of the country to accompany the troops, and to destroy all those things which they could not carry with them. By this precaution, Massena’s army, on the track of the British and Portuguese, through want of food and necessaries, were reduced to the greatest privations, of which the Marshal bitterly complained in his despatches of that period. Perhaps few events in the Peninsular war reflect more credit upon Lord Wellington, as a commander, than the admirable manner in which he had thus drawn an overwhelming force of the French into actual famine, in front of works that afforded security and plenty to his own comparatively small force. In a few weeks after our arrival at Lisbon, I became sufficiently recovered to leave the hospital and was accordingly transferred to Belem, a place much noted amongst us for every species of skulk, but better known to my fellow soldiers as the “Belem rangers.” The chief part of the 58th and 87th regiments, the latter I believe from the severe loss they had sustained at Talavera, were doing duty there.