honourable claim upon the government, as monies advanced for the use of the army. Who told me in a little time after, that he had mentioned it to his Lordship; but with no other effect than to have it rejected with a generous disdain.

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While we staid at Huette, there wa little incident in life, which gave me gr diversion. The Earl, who had always maintained a good correspondence with the fair sex, hearing from one of the priests of the place, that, on the alarm of burning the town, one of the finest ladies in all Spain had taken refuge in the nunnery, was desirous to speak with her.

The nunnery stood upon a small rising hill within the town, and, to obtain the view, the Earl had presently in his head this stratagem; he sends for me, as engineer, to have my advice, how to raise a proper fortification upon that hill, out of the nunnery. I waited upon his Lordship to the place, where, declaring the intent of our coming, and giving plausible reasons for it, the train

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took, and immediately the lady abbess, and the fair lady, came out to make intercession, that his Lordship would be pleased to lay aside that design. The divine oratory of one, and the beautiful charms of the other, prevailed; so his Lordship left the fortification to be the work of some future generation.

From Huette the Earl of Peterborow marched forwards for Valencia, with only those fourscore dragoons, which came with him from Chincon, leaving General Windham pursuing his own orders to join his forces to the army, then under the command of the Lord Galway. But stopping at Campilio, a little town in our way, his Lordship had information of a most barbarous fact committed that very morning by the Spaniards, at a small villa, about a league distant, upon some English soldiers.

A captain of the English Guards, (whose name has slipped my memory, though I well knew the man) marching in order to join the battalion of the Guards, then under the

command of General Windham, with some of his soldiers, that had been in the hospital, took up his quarters in that little villa. But on his marching out of it, next morning, a shot in the back laid that officer dead upon the spot: and as it had been before concerted, the Spaniards of the place at the same time fell upon the poor weak soldiers, killing several; not even sparing their wives. This was but a prelude to their barbarity; their savage cruelty was only whetted, not glutted. They took the surviving few, hurried and dragged them up a hill, a little without the villa. On the top of this hill there was a hole, or opening, somewhat like the mouth of one of our coal-pits; down this they cast several, who, with hideous shrieks and cries, made more hideous by the echoes of the chasm, there lost their lives.

This relation was thus made to the Earl of Peterborow, at his quarters at Campilio, who immediately gave orders for to sound to horse. At first we were all surprised;

but were soon satisfied, that it was to revenge, or rather do justice, on this barbar

ous action.

As soon as we entered the villa, we found that most of the inhabitants, but especially the most guilty, had withdrawn themselves on our approach. We found, however, many of the dead soldiers' clothes, which had been conveyed into the church, and there hid. And a strong accusation being laid against a person belonging to the church, and full proof made, that he had been singularly industrious in the execution of that horrid piece of barbarity on the hill, his Lordship commanded him to be hanged up at the knocker of the door.

After this piece of military justice, we were led up to the fatal pit, or hole, down which many had been cast headlong. There we found one poor soldier alive, who, upon his throwing in, had catched fast hold of some impending bushes, and saved himself on a little jutty within the concavity. On hearing us talk English, he cried out;

and ropes being let down, in a little time he was drawn up; when he gave us an ample detail of the whole villany. Among other particulars, I remember he told me of a very narrow escape he had in that obscure recess. A poor woman, one of the wives of the soldiers, who was thrown down after him, struggled, and roared so much, that they could not, with all their force, throw her cleverly in the middle; by which means falling near the side, in her fall she almost beat him from his place of security.

Upon the conclusion of this tragical relation of the soldier thus saved, his Lordship gave immediate orders for the firing of the villa, which was executed with due severity: after which his Lordship marched back to his quarters at Campilio; from whence, two days after, we arrived at Valencia; where, the first thing presented to that noble Lord, was all the papers taken in the plunder of his baggage, which the Duke of Berwick had generously ordered