It is with some regret I reflect, that at this period, though exposed to dangers so imminent, I was carried away in some degree with the torrent of prevailing dissipation. Not that during any period of my active service I ever suffered the pleasure of conviviality, so called, to interfere with my duty. I was indeed often astonished to notice the reckless gaiety of my companions in arms, many of whom would crowd around the evening card-table, though aware that by dawn of day they might be engaged in mortal combat. In the midst of examples so contaminating, certain principles of morality, aided perhaps by a little natural gravity, were never totally subverted; and, under the blessing of God, preserved me from the grosser 115vices. Had I been favoured with an able and enlightened Christian teacher, it is probable, even then, that my mind might have received the light of Gospel truth. Insensible and ungrateful indeed I must have been not to have perceived and felt the mercies of Divine Providence; for during the entire period of my active service, though exposed to perils almost unnumbered, I was, not only preserved alive, but had been exempted from sickness, and therefore able, without a single exception, to maintain my place in the division. Masséna resumed his march on the 4th. Leaving his sick and wounded with a slender guard at Coimbra, amounting altogether to four thousand seven hundred men, he resumed his march by Condeixa and Leiria. His hospital was established at the convent of Santa Clara, on the left bank of the river; and all the inhabitants who were unable to reach the lines came down from their hiding-places in the mountains. But scarcely had the prince left the city, when Trant, Miller, and Wilson, with nearly ten thousand militia, closed upon his rear, occupying the sierras on both sides the Mondego, and cutting off all communication with Almeida. The English army retreated; the right by Thomar and Santarem, the centre by Batalha and Rio Mayor, the left by Olobaca and Obidos; and at the same time a native force under Colonel Blunt was thrown into Peniché. Masséna followed in one column, by the way of Rio Mayor; but meanwhile a capital exploit, performed by a partisan officer, convicted the prince of bad generalship, and shook his plan of invasion to the base. Colonel Trant reached Milheada, and, believing that his arrival was unknown at Coimbra, he resolved to attack the French in that city. Having surprised a small post at Fornos, early in the morning of the 7th he sent his cavalry at full gallop through the streets of Coimbra, with orders to pass the bridge and cut off all 116communications with the French army. Meantime, his infantry penetrated at different points into the principal parts of the town; and the enemy, astounded, made little or no resistance. The convent of St. Clara surrendered at discretion; and thus, on the third day after the Prince of Essling had quitted the Mondego, his depôts and hospitals,