were sent off to the Commander-in-Chief, requesting that a court-martial
might sit to try the young deserter, he arrived home long enough before
the despatches to enable him to sell out of his regiment. He deserved
to have been shot.

Sir John Hope, who commanded our corps d'armee at Bayonne, had his quarters
at a village on the Adour, called Beaucauld. He was good enough to
name me to the command of the village; which honour I did not hold for
many days, for the famous sortie from Bayonne took place soon after,
and the general was made prisoner.


SIR JOHN WATERS


Amongst the distinguished men in the Peninsular war whom my memory brings
occasionally before me, is the well-known and highly popular Quartermaster
General Sir John Waters, who was born at Margam, a Welsh village in
Glamorganshire. He was one of those extraordinary persons that seem
created by kind nature for particular purposes; and, without using the
word in an offensive sense, he was the most admirable spy that was ever
attached to an army. One would almost have thought that the Spanish
war was entered upon and carried on in order to display his remarkable
qualities. He could assume the character of Spaniards of every degree
and station, so as to deceive the most acute of those whom he delighted
to imitate. In the posada of the village he was hailed by the contrabandist
or the muleteer as one of their own race; in the gay assemblies he was
an accomplished hidalgo; at the bull-fight the toreador received his
congratulations as from one who had encountered the toro in the arena;
in the church he would converse with the friar upon the number of Ave