Being near the town of Usagree, in Estramadura, with a brigade of dragoons, I remember seeing whole fields of wheat, &c., cut down and given as green food to the horses of our army. The French being expected almost immediately to occupy the position we were then in, the commanding officer very properly thought it better to secure the grain for ourselves than leave it to fall into the hands of the enemy. A poor old Spaniard came up to the gallant colonel, the late Sir Felton Harvey, and, shaking his grey locks, implored him to spare his only field, which was to preserve himself and family from starving, and which he beheld our troops cutting to feed their horses. The reply was that we were his friends; that we were obliged to take the corn, since our horses must not starve; that, if they did not eat it, those of the French, his mortal enemies, would. The colonel concluded by giving the poor man an order on the commissary to pay him in dollars equal to what had been taken away. I give this anecdote for the edification of such of my countrymen as are apt, through ignorance, let us hope, to malign the conduct of our soldiers in the Peninsula, and who grudge the officers and men of both army and navy their hard-earned half-pay or pension, a return surely not more than sufficient for averting the horrors of war from the hearths of their fellow subjects. The constant state of alarm and anxiety that the whole of Spain and Portugal suffered while the contending armies were hovering about was extreme. As long as the British troops occupied their towns and villages, the poor inhabitants knew they had nothing to fear; but the moment the French came, plunder and destruction were the order of the day, and in very many cases, outrages were committed through mere wantonness: houses unroofed, the sides of others stove in, and the furniture destroyed. Our soldiers were the “lion and the lamb”; those of the French, to use Voltaire’s expression, the “tiger and the monkey.” I was informed at Villa Vicosa, by a genteel Portuguese family, of the continual fear they lived in, and they related to me the following circumstance:--One night the alarm was given that the French were advancing into the town, nearly every person having gone to bed. Immediately all the church bells began tolling to give warning; everyone, even the sick, arose, these latter were put into cars, each person taking what things he could carry with him--one a bed, another articles of clothing, chairs, tables, or whatever else might be useful in their hiding places. After they had gone a short distance, it was found to be only a false alarm. An enemy’s foraging party had been seen during the evening in the neighbourhood, but had, fortunately for them, taken another direction. At this period our troops were in the north of Portugal, and the French having a strong garrison in Badajoz, used to send out occasionally a marauding party, which caused the above consternation!