of, the cavalry had come over the hill out of the gully to cut off our
retreat. There was a Frenchman before me, just on the right; our great
coats incommoded him in horse collar fashion; he had undone the strap to
get it off his shoulder; he was all of a tremble and so much confused
that he could not get it off, when he looked round at me and called out
for me to pull it off his shoulder. As I was passing him by, I caught
hold of it; and in pulling, as I thought, to pull it off, I pulled him
on the broad of his back. I had no time to look about me; the cavalry
were just behind charging us sword in hand. Shortly before they got up
to us I told the officer to give command, and he asked, “What am I to
do, corporal?” I answered, “There is no time for squabbling in words.” I
told the men to form a rallying square, fifteen in kneeling position,
and fifteen firing over them. They charged right up to us; and one great
long soldier reached over his holster pipes, and just cut the top of my
eye with his sword. We shot down about seventeen over their holster
pipes; they turned their horses heads about to retire, and I jumped off,
front rank kneeling, and ordered the men to form line and charge; the
enemy had not proceeded far before they turned round their horses’ heads
to have another turn at us. I said, “Form square.” So we formed square,
and peppered a few more of them down. After the third time, they set
off, leaving us master of the field. They shot four of us, and wounded
three. I then proceeded on the way up to where we had captured the
artillery. Major Lanson came off the hill and called out to me,
“Corporal, you had a sharp attack with the cavalry;” as they had
possession of the hill and had driven the enemy off. He said he had been
looking at me during the time; and the colonel made the observation at
the time, that the corporal had shown them gallant play. He asked, “What
was Burton up to?” I replied, “I was not looking after him, but for my
own safety, and also that of my men, as I was well disciplined for the
field. The officer was outside of the square, and wanted me to let him
come in; I told the men to keep close, and he rolled himself under the
bayonets for protection.” Major Lanson said he was very thirsty, and
asked if I had a drop of water in my canteen. I replied that I had. He
asked, “Will you give me a drop?” “By all means,” I replied; he stooped
down and took a drink, and was very thankful; he asked me if I would
take a little spirits out of his flask, of which I was very glad. I
returned the compliment; so we remained during the day.
Night came on: we formed camp inside a low wall on a gentleman’s estate;
there we lay during the night, chopping down the trees, and anything we
could come at, to make fires. We shortly afterwards rolled ourselves up
in our coverings; I looked round about me, and discovered some of the
French bringing legs and shins of beef over the wall; I jumped up to go
and see if I could not get hold of something too, and when I arrived at
the place where the cavalry had been bothering us through the day, the
French were cutting up the horses to bring into camp to cook. I pulled
out my knife, and cut about half-a-dozen pounds off a rump of a nice
young horse; I brought it into camp, and took my ramrod out, which made
me a very good skewer. After I had riddled it on the ramrod, toasted it
on the fire. Some of the young officers lying round the fire, yawned
out, “Who’s that cooking beef steaks on the fire?” the soldier replied,
“It is Corporal Knight.” “Where did he get beefsteaks to-night?” they
asked, as the commissaries were not up. I said that I was roasting some
horse flesh. “Have you ventured upon eating horse flesh, corporal?” I
replied, “I had better eat that than none; I am cooking it nicely with
the gravy in it to make me strong and long winded.” They said, “We never
did yet.” One of the officers asked me if I would give him a bit, which
I did; as he was taking it off with his delicate finger and thumb, he
put it between his grinders, and made a crack at it. He asked me if I
would supply him with water. I told him if he would go to the river he
could supply himself. After I had refreshed myself, I rolled myself up
in my big coat and lay alongside of the fire. The quarter-master
sergeant came round to know if any of the soldiers had any water in any
of the canteens; I looked up at him, and asked him who it was that
wanted water, he said, “Who is that speaking?” I said, “It is Corporal
Knight;” he asked, “Have you any water, corporal, in your canteen?” I
replied that I had, and was likely to keep it. He said, “I do not want
it, but the colonel, who sent me round to know if you had any water.” I
asked, “Where is the colonel lying?” “He is laying down under the wall,
rolled up in his cloak:” I immediately jumped up, and proceeded with the
quarter-master sergeant to where the colonel was laying; he observed us
coming, and said, “Who is that coming?” “Quarter-master sergeant
Sutherland, and Corporal Knight.” The colonel asked the quarter-master,
“Has the corporal got any water in his canteen?” The quarter-master
sergeant replied, “He has, but he would got give it up to me.” “He has
done right enough, too,” said the colonel, and I pulled my canteen off
the strap that was attached to it, and gave it to him; he drank heartily
out of it, and was very thankful; I told him he was extremely welcome. I
said, “Colonel, shall I get you a beefsteak for supper, as I have been
taking a good supper off the same animal, off the rump of a nice young
horse?” “No, never mind it, corporal, I can do very well to-night;” I
said, “I will leave you the canteen, sir, to drink the remainder of the
water.” He was very thankful; I wished him good night, and went back to
my old residence to lie down by the fire.
I went down the following morning (the 24th July) to get my canteen,
and received it from the colonel. We fell into conversation respecting
the cavalry which had been charging us the previous day, and he asked me
what Mr Burton, the officer of the outlying picket, had been doing. My
answer was that I was not studying him, but was looking after my own
interest. Shortly afterwards, we all fell in, and the aide-de-camp came
round to the colonel and told him that he was to march to Oporto.
Accordingly we proceeded on our way back to Oporto about three miles,
when the aide-de-camp came forward and told the colonel that the
regiment was to halt; so we lay there for further orders, for about two
hours. We heard the enemy was advancing on us, and very shortly after
discovered about twenty bullock teams coming on the road from Oporto,
with bread and wine to supply the troops. When they came up, the
battalion was ordered by the colonel to get their rations; so we had two
days’ wine, which was a quart (a pint per day), and also two pounds of
bread. After we had refreshed ourselves, we were stronger and better
able to attack the enemies that came up against us. The quarter-master
sergeant called out for me, and I went up a little way where they were
serving out the rations; he told me to give him my canteen, which I
handed to him, and he filled it full of wine (three pints); he said that
was an order from the colonel. We lay there but a very short time, when
we proceeded on our way to Oporto, where we arrived just before
nightfall, and marched, into the town with bugles playing and all the
colours we had left flying; for they were tattered and torn with shot.
The inhabitants of the town gave us a hearty cheer, and had pitchers of
wine ready for us as we passed along and went into our old residence at
the Convent of St. Lazarus, there to lie until further orders. I threw
myself down to get a little sleep which was very much required.
Waking up in the morning, I was as hearty as a trout. After breakfast,
the colonel’s orderly sergeant came round (the light company), and
wanted to know where Corporal Knight was; he was taken to the room where
I was lying in charge of twelve men; the sergeant told me the colonel
wished to see me. I asked him if he knew what it was for, and he replied
that he did not; but I put on my jacket and cap and went with him. When
we came to the colonel’s quarters, the sergeant knocked at the door,
which being opened the colonel told me to come in: so I sat down for a
few minutes, and he entered into conversation with me; he then gave me
ten dollars, and told me that would do; upon which I retired and went
back to the convent. I have forgotten to make mention that I asked the
colonel what the ten dollars were for; and he answered, “for the water I
had given on the twenty-third evening of duty at Ponto Ferrado.” He
said, “Corporal, you can now go and have a good “spree.” I went into the
town and had a good “sheevo” during the night.
Some few days after, the inhabitants of the town made a collection among
themselves, which amounted to ten dollars a man in the British
battalion. They used generally to encourage us, by giving us ten
dollars, to keep them out of the town. So the whole battalion had a good
flare up for a night or two,--plenty of fiddling and dancing, which
strongly reminded us of dear old England.
After all our money was spent we went back quietly to the convent. In
about a fortnight after that our paymaster fortunately came out from
home to pay us some back pay due to us (two months). Each soldier had £2
5s. per month; our pay was augmented to that of a British soldier; they
received their two months’ money. My pay was fourpence a-day extra,
which, amounting to ten shillings a-month, made it £5 10s. per two
months. I had it paid to me in Spanish dollars, and I pushed off to the
quay to have a “flare up.” In “flaring up” in the course of the night, I
“flared down,” and measured my length on the ground, with a stone under
my head for a pillow. When I woke up in the morning, the devil might
have danced a hornpipe in my pocket; for my money was all gone, and my
orders off my breast had followed my money. I said it was all fair in
war, the scamps had cleaned me out. “I will be as keen as any other one
to-night to look out to see what I can lay hold of.” So I pushed off to
the convent, and I had a good sleep through the day, and I proceeded on
the way down to the quay, where I found my comrades reeling about from
side to side. I reeled up against one fellow, but he had not quite
enough in his noddle box; I reeled up against another one, and down we
went together; my hands were soon in his pockets, to make up for what I
had lost the night before. I had a good “flare up” that night, and took
great care I did not “flare down.”
In the morning there was a chap came up to me pulling such a long, wry
face. I said to him, “Why so down in the mouth?” He answered, “Some one
has been about me and stole all my money.” “The devil they did!” replied
I; “it was only the night before they treated me in the same way.”
“Well,” he says, “Corporal, let us keep a sharp look out, and, if I
catch the scoundrel that treated me so, I’ll make his bones sore for a
month.” But I, pitying the poor devil pulling such a long face, took him
into a wine shop to give him a glass with his own money. I proceeded
then to the convent, and kept myself all night.
I happened to be on guard a few days after this, and was sitting on a
low wall opposite the guard room door, and a few soldiers along with me,
it being night (somewhere near eleven o’clock), when the rounds came
round the corner of a wall; I challenged and got no reply, only a “hoo,
hoo;” I jumped off the wall to meet his approach with a lump of a stone
in my hand, and hit him full in the face, which made him sing out for
his great grandfather. As soon as he came on the ground, I out with my
bayonet and ran it into his neck. I told the men with me to lay hold of
him by the hind legs, and to bring him on; they brought him down to the
guard room, proceeding towards the kitchen, when the sergeant jumped up
off the guard bed half asleep as he was, and asked, “What is the
matter?” I replied, “You shall have your share when it is ready.” “You
Corporal Knight,” said he, “you are a terrible fellow for looking after
the pigs.” I answered, “That is what I principally hit on.” I told the
men to drag him into the mess kitchen, and make a good fire under the
copper to scald him. They complied with my orders, and I said, “Those
who eat the most pork will eat the most bristles.” After the pig was got
ready, I told them to shoulder the pot and march; they brought the pig
into the guard room, and we all took a hearty meal off him. Nothing took
place after that for some little time; being very badly off for rations,
the colonel issued an order for a non-commissioned officer of a company
to take a portion of men daily into the garden, so I called four men to
bring their haversacks to proceed into the garden along with me; I went
to the Monk’s kitchen door and knocked; he asked in the Portuguese
language who was there; he opened the door and told me to come in, and I
told the men to follow me. I went into the garden and told the men to
fall to and get some vegetables; in the meantime I shook myself off a
few figs. After they had supplied themselves with vegetables, I told
them they could get a little fruit for themselves, but not to break or
destroy the trees. When they had got a supply I told them to come on;
accordingly we went into the kitchen, and I observed a pig’s cheek on
the block, belonging to the monks; I called the cook, in order to take
his attention off the block, and he came over to me; in the meantime I
put my hand back as a signal to one of the men to carry away the pig’s
cheek; as soon as I saw the pig’s cheek had disappeared from the block,
I thought it was time for me to disappear also, so I said to the cook in
Portuguese, “Adieu, signor;” he called me a very good man, and said
there would be a good deal of heavy firing in a short time, and that the
English soldiers were very good in the field.
After I departed from the convent, the pig’s cheek we had carried off
and the vegetables in the garden soon disappeared also. But it was best
of all when the pigs themselves made their way into the garden; and, not
to touch those in the woods, or roads, as they did not seem half fond of
the garden, we fell into the plan of driving them into the garden, and
then falling upon them and killing them. The captain, on going his
rounds the first evening, saw three lying dead in the kitchen, waiting
for scalding. I told him not to be too particular about scalding them,
for those that eat the most pork would eat the most bristles. Going his
rounds the following evening, he saw six pigs, and he said, “The pigs
are very partial to the garden. Are you sure you found them all there?”
No reply. “Who is butcher among you?” he asked. No reply yet. Seeing me
sitting on the mess-room kitchen table, he asked me if I knew anything
of the affair. I told him, “No; I had come in promiscuously to get a
light of my cheroot.” He remarked, “I think you are one of the
ringleaders.” He thought right enough, too. Notwithstanding all his
sharpness, we managed to keep ourselves pretty well supplied with pork,
and also to get a fair share of aquadente. In fact, we took everything
we could possibly lay our hands on. We often turned out of the convent
at night, at all hours, and formed close column in the Arsenal Square,
there to lay till further orders, under expectation of the enemy, coming
up to rescue the town from us. As the day approached, we would march
back into the convent. Our rations were very scantily served out; there
was scarcely a thing a dog or cat could eat but what was devoured by the
soldiers. I had never ventured myself yet on eating dogs or cats. Going
up a street called Rue Tendemdza, I met two lancers coming down the
street, and they said to me, “Corporal, why so down in the mouth?” I
said, “It would make anyone look down in the mouth to be starved as we
were.” “Just come along with us; we have been cooking some mutton.” And
they brought me into the Horse Barracks, and put some meat before me
with some soup. I “progged” hold of a piece of meat with a fork, and
lifted it up to my nose and smelt it. “Don’t tell me this is mutton,” I
remarked, “it is part of an old tom cat.” “Taste it,” said he, “it will
do you no harm. Here, I will show you how to eat;” and taking a leg he
munched away at it like a Russian. Having seen this man eat the leg of
the cat, and being moreover very hungry at the time, I took a mouthful
or two but would not eat any more of it. I would rather have died with
hunger. I was nearly choked all the day drinking water to take the
dreadful taste out of my mouth. Some time afterwards, however, I was as
keen as any one looking after the same animals; necessity compelled me
to do so.
The cavalry had two or three horses that died with sheer hunger, as
there was no forage to give them. The poor animals used to tremble at
the water trough. I made a remark that if the enemy had known how we
were situated they could very easily have taken the town from us. The
inhabitants of the town were also starving. I have actually seen the
cavalry scrape the meat off the dead horses’ bones. The cholera broke
out (1832), and the inhabitants began to die off very fast. If the enemy
had come against us with a reinforcement, they could have killed and
destroyed us all; but it was fortunate for us poor soldiers that they
did not know how we were situated. They lived first-rate themselves, but
would allow nothing to reach us. We often used to make a sally to beat
them back in order to get something to eat, if possible. We used
sometimes to get rations served out that were conveyed by the fleet
whenever they had an opportunity of working the boats.
There was a 15-gun battery on the north side of the town, just at the
entrance to the bar, coming into the river Douro. Our people formed a
bridge of pontoons, and our army went over (about 6000) to beat back the
enemy and rescue the battery. It was not very difficult to come at, and
we took possession of the battery, and the guns were spiked and thrown
off the carriages. We beat the enemy about two leagues to the rear, and
marched back again into the town. We cut down the body of a soldier from
off a tree on the breast of the town, which had been hanging there seven
weeks, and buried him. As we often went down the river at low water
mark, we supposed the enemy had got hold of the poor man.
We now had an excellent allowance served out by the admiral’s squadron,
consisting of beef and biscuit, sometimes pork. Before we captured the
battery, when conveying the boats in, they used to muffle the oars to
prevent any noise being made by them, so as to do everything as secretly
as possible; for they would have swamped us if they had heard any noise.
We had very hard times of it.
On the seventeenth of August, I was ordered to take two invalids into
the general hospital, and after giving them up to the doctor, I was
returning to my residence: eight hundred men arrived a few days before,
from Great Britain, called the British volunteers, under the command of
Colonel Burrel. The men, who were drinking in the town, saw me passing,
and called out to me to come and take a glass of wine. Accordingly I
went in with them, and I stopped during the night; early on the
following morning (the eighteenth), I heard a gun fire from the battery;
they asked me what was the meaning of that gun firing. I told them I
thought it was something going to turn up that day, and in a very short
period. The battery guns were in full play, I shook hands with them, and
made off to where our company lay; when I arrived, the captain asked me
where I had been; I told him I had been to the general hospital with two
invalids. He said, “Look sharp up into the room and get your
accoutrements on,” but when I came into the room they were all taken
away and put into the quarter-master’s stores; I came down and informed
the captain, then ran over to the quarter-master’s stores, and looked
about for my accoutrements, but could not discover them; I picked up an
old kit of belts that had not had a bit of pipeclay on them for months;
I lifted an old firelock and a bayonet, they were very rusty; I looked
into the pouch to see if there was any ammunition, and found it was
empty; I went over to the barrel where the ammunition was kept, and
filled my pouch with sixty rounds, and forty in an old haversack I
lifted; I then made my way out to the company as soon as I could. The
battalion was all ready to march off--we proceeded over a gully into
the field of action, the battalion companies formed lines, and the light
company in skirmishing order; the bugle sounded to commence fire, I
primed, and found she was loaded, she flashed in the pan,--I tried her
again, and she flashed in the pan again; I said to my next man, “Lend me
your worm to draw the charge;” I stooped down behind a lot of stones,
thinking I could not get shot while drawing the charge; I sprang the
ramrod, and she was all right, I loaded her, and she flashed in the pan
again; she was so foul that she would not go off; I lifted her by the
muzzle, hit the butt of her on a rock, and broke her short in two, for I
was so agitated, thinking I was not going to get a shot at the enemy. I
advanced about three hundred yards, when I discovered three sergeants of
the enemy lying dead; I lifted one of their fuzees, and tried her to see
if she was loaded; she was discharged, but I soon charged her, and she
went off most beautifully. I fired sixty-three rounds, and she did not
miss fire once.
We beat the enemy back, and lay neutral on the ground, thinking a
reinforcement would come up. After two hours they did so. We had a
strong attack from them, and kept it up till sundown. Captain Shaw
received a wound through both calves of his legs, which caused him to
fall. He called out to me (I was not many yards from him) to take him to
the rear, and I carried him about two or three hundred yards down under
the hill, and put him into a quarry hole. “Hey, mon!” he cried, “ye
going to leave me here?” He was a very heavy man. I told him that he was
out of the way of the shots, and that I would send a muleteer (the first
I could meet with) to carry him into the town. In going back to my
company I met a muleteer going into the town for ammunition, and I
pointed to the place where the captain lay. Shortly afterwards the enemy
beat the retreat, we marched back into the town. We lost upwards of 300,
killed and wounded. As I was going into the town, I was very desirous to
look where the captain lay, and I observed that he was gone. We took up
our old position, and there we lay till further orders.
On the 7th of September, the enemy had a reinforcement from Lisbon; and
we had another attack from them, and bonfire convenient to the town. We
kept up a strong fire, but were compelled to retreat, as our number was
getting weak, and, coming into the town they could not get a sufficient
supply of ammunition to keep the guns in full play. There were five
regiments of Tachedores, brought from the Foise, placed there to keep
that part of the town good. We beat the enemy back again to the lines.
Some of the skirmishers belonging to the enemy went down through the
gardens under the retreat; they had several walls to go over, which
divided the gardens. There was a fellow just before me, getting over the
wall, and I ran my bayonet into him to assist him over. He turned round,
and said in Portuguese language, that I was a good fellow, which was a
hint for me to leave off pushing him with my bayonet. We kept it up till
night. The enemy were supposed to have lost about 7000, and our side
nearly 2000, from what I could understand.
There was a very old mansion belonging to a gentleman, nearly about the
middle of where the action took place, with an immense draw-well
erected, very much in the old English style, and a very large wheel for
the water to be drawn up by a mule. The well ledge was thrown up, and
the dead bodies cast into the well, in order to make a clearance.