The British army was so weak, and had suffered so much, that the 29th and 30th were passed, by sir Arthur, in establishing his hospitals at Talavera, and in fruitless endeavours to procure provisions, and the necessary assistance to prevent the wounded men from perishing. Neither Cuesta nor the inhabitants of Talavera, although possessing ample means, would render the slightest aid, nor would they even assist to bury the dead. The corn secreted in Talavera was alone sufficient to support the army for a month; but the troops were starving, although the inhabitants, who had fled across the Tagus with their portable effects at the beginning of the battle, had now returned. It is not surprising that, in such circumstances, men should endeavour to save their property, especially provisions; yet the apathy with which they beheld the wounded men dying for want of aid, and those who were found sinking from hunger, did in no wise answer Mr. Frere’s description of them, as men who “_looked upon the war in the light of a crusade, and carried it on with all the enthusiasm of such a cause_.” This conduct left an indelible impression on the minds of the English soldiers. From that period to the end of the war their contempt and dislike of the Spaniards were never effaced; and long afterwards, Badajos and St. Sebastian suffered for the churlish behaviour of the people of Talavera. The principal motive of action with the Spaniards was always personal rancour: hence, those troops who had behaved so ill in action, and the inhabitants, who withheld alike their sympathy and their aid from the English soldiers to whose bravery they owed the existence of their town, were busily engaged after the battle, in beating out the brains of the wounded French as they lay upon the field; and they were only checked by the English soldiers, who, in some instances, fired upon the perpetrators of this horrible iniquity. Cuesta also gave proofs of his ferocious character; he, who had shown himself alike devoid of talent and real patriotism, whose indolence and ignorance of his profession had banished all order and discipline from his army, and whose stupid pride had all but caused its destruction, now assumed the Roman general, and proceeded to decimate the regiments that had fled in the panic on the 27th. Above fifty men he slew in this manner; and if his cruelty, so contrary to reason and the morals of the age, had not been mitigated by the earnest intercession of sir Arthur Wellesley, more men would have been destroyed in cold blood, by this savage old man, than had fallen in the battle. [Sidenote: Sir A. Wellesley’s Correspondence, Parl. Papers, 1810.]