Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 1.djvu/183

 always unavailing. They were either stabbed before our faces, or dragged to the top of a hill commanding a view of some fortress occupied by the French, and, in sight of their countrymen, their throats were cut from ear to ear.

Should the Christian reader condemn this horrid barbarity, as he certainly will, be must remember that these people were men whose every feeling had been outraged. Rape, conflagration, murder, and famine had every where followed the steps of the cruel invaders; and however we might lament their fate, and endeavour to avert it, we could not but admit that the retaliation was not without justice.

In this irregular warfare, we sometimes revelled in luxuries, and at others were nearly starved. One day, in particular, when fainting with hunger, we met a fat, rosy-looking capuchin: we begged him to shew us where we might procure some food, either by purchase or in any other way; but he neither knew where to procure any, nor had he any money: his