Never indeed did any men heap upon themselves more guilt and infamy than those by whom this easy conquest was obtained. The inhabitants of Ucles had taken no part in the action; from necessity they could only be passive spectators of the scene. But they had soon cause to lament that they had not rather immolated their wives and children with their own hands, like the Numantians of old, and then rushed upon the invaders to sweeten death with vengeance, instead of submitting to the mercy of such enemies. Plunder was the first object of the French, and in order to make the townspeople discover where their valuables were secreted, they tortured them. When they had thus obtained all the portable wealth of the place, they yoked the inhabitants like beasts, choosing especially the clergy for this outrage, loaded them with their own furniture, and made them carry it to the Castle Hill, and pile it in heaps, where they set fire to it, and consumed the whole. They then in mere wantonness murdered above threescore persons, dragging them to the shambles, that this butchery might be committed in its proper scene. Several women were among these sufferers, and they might be regarded as happy in being thus delivered from the worse horrors that ensued: for the French laid hands on the surviving women of the place, amounting to some three hundred, ... they tore the nun from the altar, the wife from her husband’s corpse, the virgin from her mother’s arms, and they abused these victims of the foulest brutality, till many of them expired on the spot. This was not all, ... but the farther atrocities which these monsters perpetrated cannot even be hinted at without violating the decencies of language and the reverence which is due to humanity. These unutterable things were committed in open day, and the officers made not the slightest attempt at restraining the wretches under their command; they were employed in securing the best part of the plunder for themselves. The Spanish government published the details of this wickedness, in order ♦GAZETA DEL GOBIERNO, APRIL 24, 1809.♦ that if the criminals escaped earthly punishment, they might not escape perpetual infamy. ♦INFANTADO COLLECTS THE FUGITIVES.♦