The shops were rifled, first by one group, who despoiled them of their most costly articles, then by another, who thought themselves rich in capturing what had been rejected by their predecessors; then another, and another still, until every vestige of property was swept away. A few hours was sufficient for this; night was fast drawing near, and then a scene took place that has seldom fallen to the lot of any writer to describe. Every insult, every infamy that human invention could torture into practice was committed. The following day, the 8th of April, was also a fearful one for the inhabitants; the soldiers became reckless, and drank to such an excess that no person’s life, no matter of what rank, or station, or sex, was safe. If they entered a house that had not been emptied of all its furniture or wine, they proceeded to destroy it; or, if it happened to be empty, which was generally the case, they commenced firing at the doors and windows, and not unfrequently at the inmates, or at each other! They would then sally forth into the streets, and fire at the different church-bells in the steeples, or the pigeons that inhabited the old Moorish turrets of the castle—even the owls were frighted from this place of refuge, and, by their discordant screams, announced to their hearers the great revolution that had taken place near their once peaceful abodes. The soldiers then fired upon their own comrades, and many men were killed, in endeavouring to carry away some species of plunder, by the hands of those who, but a few hours before, would have risked their own lives to protect those they now so wantonly sported with: then would they turn upon the already too deeply injured females, and tear from them the trinkets that adorned their necks, fingers, or ears! and, finally, they would strip them of their wearing apparel. Some 'tis said there were—ruffians of the lowest grade, no doubt—who cut the ear-rings out of the ears of the females who bore them. Hundreds of those fellows took possession of the best warehouses, and for a time fulfilled the functions of merchants; those, in their turn, were ejected by a stronger party, who, after a fearful strife and loss of lives, displaced them, and occupied their position, and those again were conquered by others, and others more powerful! and thus was Badajoz circumstanced on the morning of the 8th of April 1812. It presented a fearful picture of the horrors that are inevitable upon a city carried by assault; and although it is painful to relate these disgraceful facts, it is essential nevertheless. I feel as much pride as any man can feel in having taken a part in actions that must ever shed lustre upon my country; but no false feeling of delicacy shall ever prevent me from speaking the truth—no matter whether it touches the conduct of one man or ten thousand!