troops, which were, in a manner, driven out of Spain.

And yet that transaction, doughty as it was, took up four most precious months, which most certainly might have been much better employed in rendering it impossible for the enemy to re-enter Spain; nor had there been any great difficulty in so doing, but the contrary, if the General at Madrid had thought convenient to have joined the troops under the Earl of Peterborow, and then to have marched directly towards Pampelona, or the frontiers of France. To this the Earl of Peterborow solicited the King, and those about him; he advised, desired, and intreated him to lose no time, but to put in execution those measures resolved on at Barcelona. A council of war in Valencia renewed the same application; but all to no purpose, his route was ordered him, and that to meet his Majesty on the frontiers of Arragon. There, indeed, the Earl did meet the King; and the French General an army, which, by virtue of a de

crepid intelligence, he never saw or heard of till he fled from it to his camp at Guadalira. Inexpressible was the confusion in this fatal camp: The King from Arragon, the Earl of Peterborow from Valencia, arriving in it the same day, almost the same hour, that the Earl of Galway entered, under a hasty retreat before the French army.

besieged.

But to return to order, which a zeal of justice has made me somewhat anticipate; the Earl had not been long at Valencia before he gave orders to Major-General Windham, to march with all the forces he had, which were not above two thousand men, and lay siege to Requina, a town ten Requina leagues distant from Valencia, and in the way to Madrid. The town was not very strong, nor very large; but sure the oddliest fortified that ever was. The houses in a circle connectively composed the wall; and the people, who defended the town, instead of firing from hornworks, counter

scarps, and bastions, fired out of the windows of their houses.

Notwithstanding all which, General Windham found much greater opposition than he at first imagined; and therefore, finding he should want ammunition, he sent to the Earl of Peterborow for a supply; at the same time assigning, as a reason for it, the unexpected obstinacy of the town. So soon as the Earl received the letter, he sent for me; and told me I must repair to Requina, where they would want an engineer; and that I must be ready next morning, when he should order a lieutenant, with thirty soldiers, and two matrosses, to guard some powder for that service. Accordingly, the next morning, we set out, the lieutenant, who was a Dutchman, and commander of the convoy, being of my acquaintance.

We had reached Saint Jago, a small village about midway between Valencia and Requina, when the officer, just as he was got without the town, resolving to take up

his quarters on the spot, ordered the mules to be unloaded. The powder, which consisted of forty-five barrels, was piled up in a circle, and covered with oil-cloth to preserve it from the weather; and though we had agreed to sup together at my quarters within the village, yet, being weary and fatigued, he ordered his field-bed to be put up near the powder, and so lay down to take a short nap. I had scarce been at my quarters an hour, when a sudden shock attacked the house so violently, that it threw down tiles, windows, chimneys, and all. It presently came into my head what was the occasion; and, as my fears suggested, so it proved: For, running to the door, I saw a cloud ascending from the spot I left the powder pitched upon. In haste making up to which, nothing was to be seen but the bare circle upon which it had stood. The bed was blown quite away, and the poor lieutenant all to pieces, several of his limbs being found separate, and at a vast distance each from the other; and particu

larly an arm, with a ring on one of the fingers. The matrosses were, if possible, in a yet worse condition, that is, as to manglement and laceration. All the soldiers who were standing, and any thing near, were struck dead. Only such as lay sleeping on the ground escaped; and of those one assured me, that the blast removed him several feet from his place of repose. In short, enquiring into this deplorable disaster, I had this account: That a pig running out of the town, the soldiers endeavoured to intercept its return; but driving it upon the matrosses, one of them, who was jealous of its getting back into the hands of the soldiers, drew his pistol to shoot it, which was the source of this miserable catastrophe. The lieutenant carried along with him a bag of dollars to pay the soldiers' quarters; of which the people, and the soldiers that were saved, found many, but blown to an inconceivable distance.

With those few soldiers that remained alive, I proceeded, according to my orders,