ordnance, at a short distance, greatly increased our alarm. They were fired from a park of artillery, which, in great neglect, and with no definite object, was kept by the Spanish Government, in that part of the town. Murat, who had this day all his troops under arms, on fixing the points of which they were to gain possession, had not forgotten the park of artillery. A strong column approached it through a street facing the gate, at which Colonel Daoiz, a native of my town, and my own acquaintance, who happened to be the senior officer on duty, had placed two large pieces loaded with grape shot. Determined to perish rather than yield to the invaders, and supported in his determination by a few artillery-men, and some infantry under the command of Belarde, another patriot officer; he made considerable havock among the French, till, overpowered by numbers, both these gallant defenders of their country fell, the latter dead, the former desperately wounded. The silence of the guns made us suspect that the artillery had fallen into the hands of the assailants; and the report of some stragglers confirmed that conjecture. A well-dressed man had, in the mean time, gone down the street, calling loudly on the male inhabitants to repair to an old depôt of arms. But he made no impression on that part of the town. To attempt to arm the multitude at this moment was, in truth, little short of madness. Soon after the beginning of the tumult, two or three columns of infantry entered by different gates, making themselves masters of the town. The route of the main corps lay through the _Calle Mayor_, where the houses, consisting of four or five stories, afforded the inhabitants the means of wreaking their vengeance on the French, without much danger from their arms. Such as had guns, fired from the windows; while tiles, bricks, and heavy articles of furniture, were thrown by others upon the heads of the soldiers. But, now, the French had occupied every central position; their artillery had struck panic into the confused multitude; some of the houses, from which they had been fired at, had been entered by the soldiers; and the cavalry were making prisoners among such as had not early taken to flight. As the people had put to death every French soldier, who was found unarmed about the streets, the retaliation would have been fearful, had not some of the chief Spanish magistrates obtained a decree of amnesty, which they read in the most disturbed parts of the town.