The following description (taken from a journal of the period of which I write) will best illustrate his character to the reader. "Espoz y Mina was at this time between twenty and thirty years old, and his frame, both of body and mind, had received the stamp which the circumstances of his country required. When he lies down at night it is always with his pistols in his girdle; and on the few nights that he ever passes under a roof, the door is well secured. Two hours’ sleep is sufficient for him. When his shirt is dirty, he goes to the nearest house, and changes it with the owner for a clean one. He makes his own powder in a cave among the mountains, and has his hospital in a mountain village, which the French have repeatedly attempted to surprise, but always unsuccessfully, for the hearts of the whole country are with Mina. He receives intelligence of every movement of the enemy, and on the first tidings of danger the villagers carry the sick and wounded upon litters on their shoulders into the fastnesses, where they remain in perfect security till the baffled enemy retires. The alcaldes of every village, when they are ordered by the French to make any requisition, must instantly inform Mina; if they fail in this duty, he goes himself in the night, seizes them in their beds, and shoots them." Although not above five-and-twenty, the hard service he had seen, in this irregular mode of warfare, made him seem much older. Mina was the idol of the Spanish people, who styled him the king of Navarre, and extolled his deeds beyond those of the Cid, or the most famous knights of Spanish chivalry and romance. Mina was a true patriot, and the Hoffer of the Spaniards. Although his guerillas were well drilled, and consisted of ten or twelve battalions, which he ruled with a rod of iron, he never restrained them from plundering the French. On his approach, Ronald raised his bonnet in greeting the great guerilla chief, for though he was originally but a humble farmer of Pampeluna, yet Francisco Mina had the heart of a hero, and was brave as a lion. "_Senor Capitan_," said he, bowing profoundly, after the most approved Spanish manner, "we have been somewhat late in coming to your rescue; but the fire of your soldiers has told superbly, and the base _ladrones_ lie here pretty thick. The old proverb should be changed to—"the more French, the more gain for us."[*] However, I never put my own hands to a man after he is dead: the plunder I leave to my followers,—’tis all their pay, poor fellows! and Our Lady del Pilar knows that they earn it hard." [*] A very old Spanish proverb, still universally current in Spain, says, "The more Moors, the more gain." "A mode of payment I very little admire," said Stuart with a smile. "But I trust, Senor Francisco, that your people will see them buried after this unharnessing is over?"