One adventurer, however, in this province raised himself to respectability and rank by his services, though known by the unpromising appellation ♦FRANCISCO ABAD, THE CHALECO.♦ of _El Chaleco_. Francisco Abad Moreno was his name: he began his career as a common soldier, and escaping from some rout, joined company with two fugitives of his own regiment, and began war upon his own account. Their first exploit was to kill an enemy’s courier and his escort; and shortly afterwards having added two recruits to his number, he presented to the Marques of Villafranca, at Murcia, five carts laden with tobacco, quicksilver, and plate, which he had taken from the French, and the ears[12] of thirteen Frenchmen who had fallen by their hands! His party increased as his name became known; and he cut off great numbers of the enemy, sometimes in Murcia, sometimes in La Mancha, intercepting their convoys and detachments. Showing as little mercy as he looked for, and expecting as little as he showed, he faced with desperate or ferocious courage the danger from which there was no escape by flight, swimming rivers when swoln by rain, or employing any means that might give him the victory. On one occasion he broke a troop of the French by discharging a blunderbuss loaded with five-and-thirty bullets; it brought down nine of the enemy, according to his own account, and he received so severe a contusion on the shoulder from the recoil, that it entirely disabled him for a time; but the party was kept together under his second in command, Juan de Bacas, and its reputation enhanced by greater exploits.