At half-past six the brigade was in motion, and I scarcely remember a more disagreeable day; the rain which had fallen in the morning was succeeded by snow and sleet, and some soldiers, who sunk from cold and fatigue, fell down exhausted, soon became insensible, and perished; yet, strange to say, an Irishwoman of my regiment was delivered of a child upon the road, and continued the march with her infant in her arms. Notwithstanding the severity of the day, it was impossible to avoid occasionally smiling at the _outré_ appearance of some of the officers. The total disregard which the Commander-in-Chief paid to uniformity of dress is well known, and there were many on this day who were obliged to acknowledge that they showed more taste than judgment in their selection. Captain Adair of my corps nearly fell a victim to the choice he had made on this our first day of opening the campaign of 1812. He wore a pair of boots that fitted him with a degree of exactness that would not disgrace a “Hoby”; the heels were high and the toes sharply pointed; his pantaloons were of blue web; his frock-coat and waistcoat were tastefully and fashionably chosen, the former light blue richly frogged with lace, the latter of green velvet with large silver Spanish buttons; but he forgot the most essential part of all—and that was his boat-cloak. For the first ten or twelve miles he rode, but the cold was so intense that he was obliged to dismount, and unquestionably his dress was but ill calculated for walking. The rain with which his pantaloons were saturated was by this time nearly frozen (for the day had begun to change), and he became so dreadfully chafed that he was necessitated to give up the march, and we left him at a village half way from Robleda, resembling more one of those which composed “the army of martyrs” than that commanded by Lord Wellington. I myself was nearly in as bad a state, but being a few years younger, and more serviceably clad, I made an effort to get on. We had by this time (eight o’clock at night) proceeded a considerable way in the dark, and, as may be supposed, it was a difficult matter to keep the men together as compactly as could be wished. Whenever an opportunity occurred a jaded soldier or two of my regiment used to look in on our Spanish friends, and if they found them at supper, they could not bring themselves to refuse an offer to “take share of what was going,” and, to say the truth, this was no more than might be expected from a set of fellows who belonged to a country so proverbial for its hospitality to strangers as theirs (Ireland) was! Besides this, the men of the Connaught Rangers had a way of making themselves “at home” that was peculiar to them, and for which—whatever else might be denied them!—they got full credit. Bob Hardyman used to say “they had a _taking way_ with them.”