He was carried away over the rough roads of Portugal, and at length reached rest at Lisbon; for the army on the second day following Busaco resumed its retreat, and Massena was again in full pursuit. The confusion was very great, and the wounded had a dreadful time of it. Wellington was laying waste the country as he retreated, and the army was falling back upon the Lines of Torres Vedras amid a scene of destruction almost unparalleled in the horrors of war. Nevertheless neither the severity of his wound nor the exigencies of the retreat prevented Charles Napier from writing to his mother to assure her of his safety, and to make light of his wounds for her sake. There is something inexpressibly touching in the constant solicitude of this danger-loving soldier towards the poor old mother at home. "I am wounded, dear mother," he writes four days after the battle, and while the confusion of the retreat is at its height; "you never saw so ugly a thief as I am, but melancholy subjects must be avoided, the wound is not dangerous." At last he reaches Lisbon and has more time for writing, and the letters become long and constant. Never (he writes) had I a petty dispute with you or heard others have one without thanking God for giving me a mother and not a tyrant. Such as your children are, they are your work. The Almighty has taken much from you, but has left much. Would that our profession allowed us to be more with you. Yet even that may happen, for peace, blessed peace, may be given to the world sooner than we think. It is war now, and you must have fortitude in common with thirty thousand English mothers, whose anxious hearts are fixed on Portugal, and who have not the pride of saying their three sons had been wounded and were all alive! How this would have repaid my father for all anxieties!... The scars on my face will be as good as medals--better, for they were not gained by simply being a lieutenant-colonel and hiding behind a wall.