and would endeavour to intoxicate the soldiers: they then called in the partizans, and pointed out during the night the houses in which their enemies had imprudently trusted themselves. At Moron, says M. Rocca, "Nous prîmes le parti de nous loger tous ensemble dans trois auberges voisines. Si nous nous étions dispersés, pour passer la nuit dans les maisons des habitans, comme nous pouvions le faire avec sûreté dans les plaines, nous aurions probablement été tous égorgés pendant la nuit.” Lord Wellington did not fail to profit by this spirit of the insurgents, as they were insolently called by men, who, in the strong and indignant language of the Junta, judging of the Spaniards by "their own degraded hearts, found nothing in them but baseness when they were weak, and atrocity when they were strong." He left the French to the vengeance of the invaded people, and by following a plan well and deeply calculated, made them struggle with hunger and disease, the eternal scourges of conquering armies, when they are not called upon and seconded by the wishes of the nation they invade. Not unfrequently the French would recognize among their unceasing annoyers, their hosts of the preceding night, for no sooner had the trumpets sounded the reveillée at sunrise, than the shepherd's horn was heard rousing the mountaineers on the tops of the neighbouring hills; these were soon joined by the inhabitants of the villages in the valley, who would go out of the town with their tools, as if they were going to work in the fields; and as soon as they were secure from observation, they sought their guns, which were buried, or safely hid in the farm-houses, would make use of them all day, and at night returned again to the town, and slept quietly in the midst of their unwelcome guests. This plan of burying their arms was uni versally practised; whenever the alcades were ordered to disarm a village, the useless weapons were readily given up, but such as were serviceable were carefully secreted and manfully used at, the first favourable opportunity. The husbandman always. guided his plough with one hand, and held his unsheathed sword in the other; and the popular pastime among the labourers of Ronda was to sit among the rocks in the olive groves at the end of the suburb, and smoke segars while they fired upon the French videttes. In Biscay and Navarre, the alcades, with the women and children, came out of the towns to meet them, as if all had been at peace, and no noise was heard but that of the smiths' hammers; but the moment they departed, all labour ceased, and the inhabitants seized their arms to harass the detachments among the rocks, and attack the stragglers and rear guards. This mode of warfare, and their incessant incursions, procured them the appropriate name of mountain flies. The animosity of the women was of a still more ferocious character than that of the men; and another proof is thus added, if proof was wanting, that the deadliest and fiercest, as well as the softest and tenderest passions, can alike be nursed and ripened in the female breast. The Spanish women dreadfully exemplified this truth; and not even the sacredness of their cause can prevent our disgust, when we hear of their throwing themselves with horrible shrieks upon the wounded, disputing who should kill them by the most cruel tortures, stabbing their eyes with knives and scissars, and exulting with ferocious joy at the sight of their blood. The conscience of M. Rocca makes him remark too mildly: "L'excès de leur juste fareur contre ceux qui venaient envahir leur pays, les avait entièrement dénaturées." What must be the fearful responsibility of that man, whose proud and guilty ambition has been the spring and source of every species of crime, round whom revolve the wicked of every nation on the continent, as the centre of demoralization and enormity; to submit to whom, was to become the associate and partaker of his guilt, while to resist him, was to degenerate into furies and ministers of blood. Sometimes, however, the women are represented as performing a part less unsuited to their character: they would dress themselves in Englishr stuffs, on which the pictures of Ferdinand VII. and the Spanish generals most distinguished in the war, were pointed; or placing themselves on the rocks to see the French pass below them, they sung patriotic songs, in which they wishéd destruction to all the French, the Grand Duke of Berg, and to Napoleon. The burden of the song was always the crowing of a cock, which they considered as the emblem of France. At a village near Campillos, the women dressed according to the custom of the country, in pale blue and red clothes, and seated themselves, as usual, on the heights, to witness a battle which was expected to take place in the plains below: on the approach of the French riflemen, they all rose at once, and sung the hymn to the Virgin Mary at this signal, the Spaniards, from their thousand retreats, fired a shower of balls, and upon the retreat of the French, the women came down from the rocks, tore the guns from their husbauds' hands, and placed themselves before them, to force them to advance and pursue the enemy beyond a wooden bridge, which it was necessary for them to pass. As might be imagined, the sight of the French wheeling about and facing them, made then return precipitately to the top of their hills. This fermentation, which was general throughout the coun try, try, and equally pervaded all sexes, ages, and professions, men, women, children, and monks, was kept alive by the bands of Serranos or Guerrillas, who scoured the provinces from the mountains to the coast, and at one time were essentially useful, by keeping up the communications between Cadiz and the interior of Spain. These hordes, always undisciplined and unaccoutred, and for the most part unarmed, or furnished with whatever weapon chance might supply, sometimes three or four hundred, some-. times three or four thousand strong, or even more numerous,' were led by those of their own body, who had given the greatest proofs of zeal, or address, or animosity to the Freach; and that they might present the idea of regularly organised troops, these chiefs were always invested with the title of general, brigadier general, or commander in chief of the mountain army. Such men were Francisquito, or little Francis, Ventura Ximenez, who spread terror from Badajos to Toledo, Don Julian Sanchez in Old Castile and Leon, Longa in Arragon, and the well known Mina in Navarre. They were sometimes known by the name of their profession, as el pastor, el medico, el contacero the potter. The Empecinado is well known, and the explanation of his name is given in the Edinburgh Annual Regis ter for 1810. This man, after his whole family had been murdered by the French, and the women had endured horrors worse than death, smeared himself in the first agony of his grief with pitch, (pez) as the Jews used to throw ashes on their heads, and vowed never to cease from seeking vengeance while a single Frenchman remained alive in Spain. M. Rocca gives the following account of another chief of less notoriety. "L'homme qui exerçait le plus d'influence sur ces hordes indisciplinées, était un nommé Cura, natif de la Valence, où il avait été professeur de mathématiques. Forcé de s'exiler de sa patrie, après avoir tué un homme par jalousie, il s'était réfugié chez les contrebandiers pour échapper aux poursuites de la justice. Il avait répandu sourdement qu'il était de la plus haute naissance, et que des raisons de politique le forçaient à rester inconnu. Les montagnards l'avaient surnommé l'inconnu au grand bonnet, parcequ'il affectait de porter un bonnet à la mode du pays, d'une grandeur démesurée, afin d'attirer sur lui l'atten. tion. Cette espèce d'existence mystérieuse lui donnait un grand empire sur les esprits. L'inconnu au grand bonnet leva un mois après de fortes contributions sur divers villages des montagnes, sous le prétexte d'aller acheter des armes et des munitions; il essaya d'échapper avec l'argent qui lui avait été confié, mais il fut pris et puni." P. 299. These disorderly troops were contemptuously styled robbers by the French, and sometimes a deep defile or the whole side af of a mountain echoed with long guttural shouts the taunting challenge, Venez, si vous l'osez, coir de plus près les brigands. The Spaniards meanwhile were not behind hand in retaliating invectives on their part: the French, they said, were heretics, pires que les Maures, car ils ne croyaient ni en Dieu, ni à la Vieroc, ni à St. Antoine, et pas même à Saint Jacques de Galice, et ne craignoient point de loger dans les églises avec leurs chevaux. The mischief done to the churches throughout the continent, wherever the French have passed, attests but too well the truth of the latter charge: the cloisters and vaults were first occupied, and if these did not suffice, the remainder of the horses were stalled in the aisles; and the towns of Liège and Mayence and Basle still present abundant proof that things sacred were not violated in Spain alone. (To be concluded in our next.) ART. III. An Essay on Gun Shot Wounds. By Charles Bell, Surgeon of the Middlesex Hospital, Lecturer in Anatomy, in the Theatre, Windmill-street, &c. 8vo. Longman and Co. : 1815. THE field of Waterloo left scarce a family in the land without its share of grief and anxiety; and there is no man so dull of heart as to acknowledge no sympathy with the brave fellows who are now detained in our hospitals by honourable wounds, Shall we confess the professional course which our thoughts have taken on the occasion ? or is it a course of sympathy altoge ther unnatural? From the glories of that day, which seems to set it seal on the steady valour and manly character of this country; and from the more pleasing prospect of that spirit of charity, which has piled up its hundreds of thousands to minister to the aid of the sufferers and their families; we have turned to meditate on the state of the wounded, and on the provisions which are within the reach of art for their relief. In this frame of mind the title of this little work caught our attention. We have perused it with much interest. And although we are aware that a great part of that interest was the result of circumstances, yet we are happy that we have met with a book in which we have found a great subject opened, and questions of high importance relative to military surgery discussed. Its author, Mr. Charles Bell, is a man whose profound acquaintance with the anatomy of the human frame is best demonstrated by the many laborious and useful publications of which he has al ready ready presented to the medical world. His "Anatomy" written in conjunction with his brother of Edinburgh, and his Surgery, are justly considered as standard books in the profession. Having been for some years a lecturer also in the same science, the soundness of his practical knowledge must be considered as fully equal to his theory. And if we are rightly informed, Mr. Bell was for some weeks at Brussels, immediately after the battle of Waterloo, where his services in the hospitals were deemed of the highest importance, and his various operations, and modes of treatment were attended with the most distin guished success. From a man therefore who has laid the foundation of his practice so deep in anatomical knowledge, and raised such a superstructure of experience upon it, we listen with so small degree of attention upon a subject, which has now no ordinary claims upon our attention. Mr. Bell informs us that his object is not to fall into the old question of the peculiarity of the wounds of fire-arms, but rather to place before his readers the difficulties of the service. Now this is precisely what we wished to see, and we think that he has done his task fairly. Together with a great deal of good surgery and sound criticism on the subject of wounds and general treatment, the author has given strong pictures of the various duties of the army surgeon, so as at once to excite restless and uneasy feelings at the thought of how many there are who must fall short of the necessary qualifications, and to raise very high in estimation the character of a military surgeon truly qualified for his place.We distinguish throughout solid judgment and good sense: many useful views are given of practice, with a continual reference to principles founded in pathology and to cases illustrative of the doctrine. In those cases the author has observed with great clearness of conception, both the fact to be noted and the practical inference to be drawn; and he has presented them to his reader with that graphic distinctness which alone can raise the interest and improve the lesson. And on the whole, the subject both as it relates to the cure of wounds, and to the arrangements of the service, is placed in a light which cannot fail, we think, to impress on military surgeons the most salutary lessons, and to be productive of improvement in the public service. In coming to particulars we find in the first part of the dissertation, some short notices of the duties of the navy surgeons, and of the nature of the injuries received during a sea-fight as distinguished from those of the field, by the contusions and lacerations produced by bolts and splinters. The author next proceeds to consider the circumstances in which the army surgeon finds himself.-We lament to see this part |