I never remember our having as much as one adjutant’s drill; all was done by the commanding officer himself. Our adjutant was left ill at Lisbon, and he that acted was more of a good penman (an essential point) than a drill. I forget now how the circumstance of our having been sent an adjutant from the Guards occurred, but one of their sergeant-majors did reach us in the capacity of adjutant. On his arrival at headquarters he dined with the Colonel, who invited him to attend parade the next morning. We were under arms at ten, and never once ordered arms until two! Not a man fell out of the ranks, not a man coughed, and not a man moved his pack. When the drill was over, “Well,” said Colonel Wallace, “what do you think of the state of the battalion?”—“Very steady indeed, sir,” replied the Guardsman. He left us that night, _and we never saw him afterwards_. On the 24th of May we reached Campo Mayor, and here I became acquainted with Maurice Quill. It would be quite idle in me to attempt giving any very detailed account of a character so well known; one who, whenever he opened his mouth, was sure to raise a laugh, and often before he had time to speak; and he by whom I was introduced (Dr. O‘Reily) was little, if anything, inferior to Quill in either eccentricity or humour. The first question Quill asked O‘Reily was, if we all slept soundly the night Brennier got away from Almeida. O‘Reily replied, “that some of our army certainly slept sounder than was desirable; but that in their affair at Albuera they did seem to have had their eyes perfectly open, not only during the action, but after it.” At this moment, a couple of hundred of those troops that had been broken by the Polish horse, having escaped from the enemy, passed us.