intricacies of discipline, and the troublesome details of classifying the officers according to their respective merits and intentions.”
It is proper here to observe, that the Spanish priests were the most active and determined opponents of the French, and from that class most of the officers of the newly raised patriotic army were selected. The partial organization of the troops was ultimately effected under the direction and guidance of Lieutenant Thruston, to whose advice and orders Don Pedro Lapido, although dubbed a marechal, implicitly submitted, conceiving that every British uniform contained under it military knowledge of all kinds, and consequently that every Englishman wearing a sword must be a complete general.
“On reaching the camp,” continues Captain Hall, “we found the patriot army exercising by divisions, under the immediate directions of old Lapido, who buckled over his cassock a huge, rusty sabre, taken by the guerillas, he told us, from a French dragoon in the mountain passes. When we approached, a general halt was ordered, and those who had muskets presented them, while those who had none went through the motions with their pikes or staves, formed out of scythes and reaping-hooks, by which these redoubtable warriors were, according to their own account, so speedily to eject the French from their country.
“As soon as the first salutations were over, the captain of the Endymion, with a gravity which shewed how far the sense of duty can overcome a feeling of ridicule, made the patriots a speech, interpreted, sentence for sentence, by Lieutenant Thruston. He complimented them upon their appearance, their military zeal, and their generous devotion; saying, that as nothing could be more suitable to the times, than such public-spirited demonstrations of hostility to the merciless invaders of their magnificent country, so they might reckon with confidence on the hearty co-operation of England in so just a cause. A pair of colours, made by the tailors of the Endymion, were then presented to the Reverend Don Pedro Lapido, and an elegant sword to Lieutenant-General CamanO, the military mover in these grand proceedings. I need hardly say that the air was rent with vivas; and I am sure anyone ignorant of Spain, who had seen the manner in which we were pulled about, and the very hems of our garments kissed – or heard the words ‘Vivan los Ingleses!’ bawled into our ears, would have declared all the reproaches uttered against the national jealousy of the Spaniards a scandalous libel. They offered to be guided by us in every thing – wished us to lead them instantly against the enemy, lest he should escape, – even the privates in this enthusiastic army, forgetting all order, left their ranks, to come crowding round us. We should have been worse than the mules on whose backs we were
