All who were regarded as brigands, who acted in the provincial Juntas, or against whom any proof appeared of acting under the Juntas, or giving intelligence or assistance to the guerrillas, were executed by the summary sentence of some arbitrary tribunal. Heads were exposed on poles, bodies left hanging upon the gallows, or the trees; and in the market-place of large towns, the wall against which the victims were shot was pierced with bullets, and the ground blackened with blood! Nowhere was this system of terror pursued more unrelentingly ♦OLD CASTILLE.♦ than in Old Castille, and yet nowhere were the guerrillas more active or more formidable. In ten parties, under known leaders, their numbers were estimated at 1,300 horse, and 2,500 foot. D. Geronimo Merino, the priest of Villabrau, known by the name of ♦THE CURA.♦ _El Cura_, was the most remarkable of them for the ferocity with which he acted against enemies who were made ferocious by the dreadful circumstances in which they were placed. It was not to be expected that the Spaniards should make this allowance for their invaders; but they did not claim it for themselves; they proclaimed for admiration and example actions at which humanity should shudder: it became a matter of praise among them, as in the days of Pizarro and Garcia de Paredes, to possess the qualities of a ruffian; and if the appearance[14] corresponded to the manners and character, the popular hero was perfect in his vocation. Yet mercy appears to have been more frequently shown by the guerrillas than extended to them. They obtained consideration with their own Government, and with the English, by bringing in prisoners, and were encouraged so to do; whereas the French soldiers knew that if an armed Spaniard were taken he would be put to death, and might consider it merciful at once to slay a fallen enemy, rather than deliver him over to execution. The guerrillas also, by conveying their prisoners to one of the Spanish fortresses, or to a part of the country where the allies were in force, obtained a respite, for the time, from that life of incessant vigilance and insecurity, exertion and exposure, which, without some such occasional relief, no bodily strength could have long supported. It was by the peasantry that the greatest cruelties were committed upon such miserable Frenchmen as fell into their hands, ♦ROCCA, 145.♦ and by the women, who are said to have sometimes vied with the worst American savages in their unutterable barbarities. ♦ARAGON.♦