A newly-ploughed field, on the face of a hill, was our portion. We got out our blankets, and lay down, expecting to get a comfortable nap, although the weather was rather cold; but towards morning, it began to rain so heavily that we were soon wet to the skin. Some, who had a little wisdom in their heads, got up, and packed up their blankets; but others lay still, until they were literally floated with water and mud, which came rolling in streams down the ridges, in such a way that they could scarcely be distinguished from the soil around. They were then obliged to get up, and squeeze their blankets in that wet and dirty state into their knapsacks. The rain got heavier, the longer it continued, and we stood huddled together, shivering with cold and wet. At last, an order came for us to march into Torres Vedras; but such a march I never saw, even in the worst of times afterwards. We were novices in the business, and not yet weather-proof. Had it not been that the town was so near, we would have occupied three or four miles of a line of road, we were so straggled. The ground was of a clayey nature, and with the rain that fell it had become like bird-lime. Our feet stuck fast at every step, and our shoes were actually torn off, and many of them were left lying in the clay. Some were walking barefoot; others in their stockings, without shoes; and more had one shoe on, and another carrying in their hand. We were a set of drenched and miserable-looking creatures, and the officers were in as bad a plight as ourselves. At last we reached the town and got into houses; but the village was too small, and we were crowded in such a way that we had scarcely room to sit down. In the course of the day, however, arrangements were made; and some of the regiments sent to other villages, so that we were better accommodated. During the time we were in the Peninsula, the troops suffered much from exposure to rain; and nothing renders a soldier so uncomfortable as having wet clothes about him; or, I believe, hurts his health more, when first exposed to it. I have often wondered that no means were taken to prevent this. Many of the officers had oil-cloth cloaks that completely covered them. Some such thing for the men would have been neither expensive nor heavy to carry, and would have been the means of saving many lives. Much more attention ought also to be paid to the quality of the shoes served out to the army, for they in general are of the very worst kind, and it was no uncommon thing for our store shoes to be in tatters before we had worn them a week.