pretty severely, and who did not always give them quarter, when vast superiority of numbers at last gave them the advantage which they certainly would not have had in more equal conditions of force. One of the most dashing things done by the insurgents on the 18th was clearing the Plaza del Progreso (one of the larger squares in the heart of the town) with the bayonet, after firing had for some time gone on. The soldiers were fairly driven out by the civilians, and the square and adjoining streets were quickly converted into a fortress, into which there was little probability of the military again penetrating. On the afternoon of the same day a number of lives were uselessly sacrificed, owing to the recklessness and vindictive spirit of a retired officer, a friend of Cordova’s. This person, although no longer in the army, obtained command of a couple of guns, some infantry, and a few dragoons, and, proceeding to the Calle Atocha, one of the principal streets of Madrid, opened a heavy fire of artillery and musketry, firing round shot into the houses, and grape down the street. He did a great deal of damage—some of it to private houses in which no insurgents were or had ever been—killed a few persons, most of them persons who had nothing in the world to do with the insurrection, but who were sitting, inoffensive and terrified, in their houses—lost thirty or forty of his own men, and finally cleared a few hundred yards of street. But this was small gain to the cause he defended, for the insurgents he drove away merely changed their place, and when he departed they returned to contemplate the ravages he had committed in the dwellings of peaceable citizens, and to go forth upon the morrow more embittered than ever to the fight.