not, however, be carried off the field, but, sitting down[27] where his comrades might hear him, he continued playing warlike airs till the end of the engagement. A handsome stand of Highland pipes, with an inscription commemorating the manner in which he had deserved the donation, was voted him by the Highland Society. Most of the wounded French who fell into the conqueror’s hands were young, and of delicate appearance, ... apparently men whose lot would not have fallen in the army, under any other system than that of the conscription, though, having been forced into it, they had acquired the worst vices which have ever disgraced and degraded the profession of arms. They were dressed in long white linen coats and trowsers, their firelocks were about six inches longer in the barrel than ours, their bayonets about three shorter, the locks of their pieces much better finished, and the pans so constructed, that the powder was not liable to fall out, ... an accident which at that time often happened to ours. A chaplain of the British army, as he was endeavouring to render assistance to some of them, while under the surgeon’s hands, addressed himself to one in the language of commiseration, and uttered, at the same time, a natural expression of regret at the horrors of war: but the Frenchman fiercely answered him, with a mixture of pride and indignation, that he gloried in his wounds, and that war was the greatest happiness of life. During the whole day the armed peasantry prowled about the field, taking vengeance upon every wounded or straggling Frenchman whom they could find, for the manifold wrongs of their country, and the aggravated injuries which they had endured. So conscious indeed were the prisoners of the little mercy which they deserved at their hands, that they dreaded lest these men should break in upon them, and massacre them all; and a guard was stationed to protect them. The peasantry, however, passed the night in the field, carousing round a large fire, recounting to each other what they had done, and rejoicing over the day’s work. ♦THE FRENCH RESOLVE TO PROPOSE TERMS.♦