The National Register.
London, England, 1811-10-27 00:00:00

•
the 26th, and all the 27th. On the 27th, we made a stand, and
another part of the army was engaged with the enemy, when
they must hay,. suffered severely. I have beard they lost about
a thousand men. Last night was the first night of rest we have
had for four : we wee a good • leal harassed ; several of our
men, after they came to halt on the evening of he 27th, fainted
away ; we had then been on our legs from nine o'clock of the
evening of the 26th, till about six in the evening of the 27th,
without having scarcely tasted any thing. I ate nothing during
that time but a little biscuit. Lord. Wellington exposed himself
a goad deal on the 26,h, and was nearly taken; but he was we
mounted. Marmont, who commands the enemy. said he would
rather take his Lordship than ten thousand men. You will
see from his Lordship's dispatches, which went off last night,
a much better account of the general business than I can possibly
give. The enemy retired to Salamanca and Placentia, and we
are going to Castello Franco. as the rainy season will soon set in,
and we must go intoiwinter quarters. Lord Wellineon's ma-
nceuvres in this last affair have been most masterly. as he wished
to draw the enemy to follow him to the Coa, which if they had
done, their army would have been even to-day annihilated. Our
army is, I am sorry to say, very sickly; they say 19,000 sick ;
but the sickly season is now over, and they will recover quite
' fast; and in the • spring we shall have a powerful army to meet
the enemy. In the late affair we went into action only about
300 men, out of 800 we brought into the country. We have
few Officers sick.—We all of eeurse s:.ffer much here, but cheer-
fully, from the conviction that we are fighting in a just cause,
and to rescue a country from the iron grasp of a daring Usurper.
whose troops have felt, and have still more severely to feel, the
decided superiority of British prowess. In the late affair, their
numbers were full ten to one; they came on with a tremendous
hums, but British troops were not to be intimidated ; and so I
believe the enemy found to their cost. Our army wish fur no-
thing but to meet the enemy daily. The Offic rs and soldiers
of both nations almost idolize Lord Wellington : so fine a fellow
certainly never existed; from six in the morning till dark, he
is constantly on horseback reconnoitring; not an inch of the
country but he is most accurately acquainted with ; and he
most richly deserves every honour the country has or may be-
stow on him.
" This country is a melancholy place ; the villages either de-
stroyed or deserted, and scarcely any thing to he got. We
sleep in places the most wretched you can conceive, when we
can get a place to sleep- in, but generally on the ground, in the
open air, and the nights now are very cold. We had some rain
the day before yesterday ; I was completely soaked,.ac it conti-
nued during the whole of our march. We are as comfortable
now as we can be in a village nearly deserted ; six of us mess
together in one room ; we help to cook our own dinners, and
eat heartily. Our meat is generally in the pot an hour after it
killed ; notwithstanding which, we manage to live well, but
very like a .set of pigs, but variety is charming : we shall enjoy
England the more whin we return; and as I have my health
famously, I enjoy this kind of life.
" To describe the wretched state of this country is completely
out of my power. The miserable and truly deplorable state of
the unfortunate inhabitants is painful to behold; their villages
all in ruins, themselves nearly in a state of starvation, and con-
stantly obliged to fiy to the mountains and abandon their now
ruinous and miserable dwellings at the approach of the French.
Could our good people in England, who are constantly grum-
bling, and endeavouring to create disturbance, but view this
wretched country, they would certainly be thankful to the
Ruler of the World, and be happy at being situated as they
are; for happy indeed are the inhabitants of a country not the
acme of a destructive war, and tenfold blessed ought the Bri-
tish people to think themselves, their island being so happily
fortified against the encroachments of a stubborn and ambitious
foe."
INDIAN INFANTICIDE.

A writer raricularly conversant with India, has given the
following facts, in a recent essay on this subject :
"The island of Saugor is situate in the Bay of Bengal. ISO
miles below Calcutta. It was n t frequented by Europeans un-
til made a naval station a few years ago. In 1801,
Marquis
Wellesley was informed that women in that island, in conse-
quence of vows, sacrifi,Td infants, by drowning or exi)osing them
to be devoured by sharks or crocodiles. His Lordship consulted
the liramins and Pundits, by whom he was as-aired, that so hor-
rible a wacrifice, on any plea was not sanctioned by the tenets of
the Ifia,loo i,n Thus fortified, Marquis Wellesley issued a
Proclamation &dal it g infanticide to he murder, and punichahla
with death. Not a murmur was heard, and as far as we know,
so foul a crime has not been committed in that island :duce tit(
year 1801.
" During the administration of Marquis Cornwallis, when the
Representative of the British Government at Benares, Mr.