By two o’clock the town was comparatively tranquil. The cannonading on the right of the line had ceased, but the enemy continued to fire on the town; this proceeding was attended with little loss to us, and was fatal to many of their wounded, who lay in a helpless state in the different streets, and could not be moved from their situation without great peril to our men—and they were torn to pieces by the shot of their own army. Several of these poor wretches were saved by the humane exertions of our soldiers, but still it was not possible to attend to all, and, consequently, the havoc made was great. Towards evening the firing ceased altogether, and it was a gratifying sight to behold the soldiers of both armies, who but a few hours before were massacring each other, mutually assisting to remove the wounded to their respective sides of the river. The town too, as was usual in such cases, was not passed unnoticed; it contained little, it is true, yet even that little was better than nothing; and it was laughable to see the scrupulous observation of _etiquette_ practised by our men, when any windfall, such as a chest of bread or bacon, happened to fall to the lot of a group of individuals in their foraging excursions. The following was the method taken to divide the spoil, and as no national distinction was thought of, the French as well as the British shared in whatever was acquired. An old experienced stager or two took upon themselves the responsibility of making a division of the plunder according to the number that were present at the capture. This done, one of the party was placed with his back to the booty, when one of those who had partitioned it called out with an audible voice, “Who is to have this?” at the same time pointing to the parcel about to be transferred, while he that was appealed to without hesitation particularised some one of the number, who immediately seized on his portion, put it into his haversack, and proceeded in search of fresh adventures. We had now leisure to walk through the town and observe the effects of the morning’s affray. The two armies lost about five thousand men, and as the chief of this loss was sustained by the troops engaged in the town, the streets were much crowded with the dead and wounded. French and British lay in heaps together, and it would be difficult to say which were most numerous. Some of the houses were also crowded with dead Frenchmen, who either crawled there after being wounded, in order to escape the incessant fire which cleared the streets, or who, in a vain effort to save their lives, were overpowered by our men in their last place of refuge; and several were thrust half-way up the large Spanish chimneys.