to two fat rosy sick-nurses, who, without any coy delays, or the slightest attempt at a blush, stript off my clothes and put me to bed. In a short time afterwards I received a visit from an English physician, who had been long resident in Toulouse. He informed me that the French army would be obliged to retire, and that the inhabitants of Toulouse were well affected towards the English. I expressed a fear, that, in the event of the French army retiring, they might carry me along with them; but he set my mind at ease by informing me, that he had sufficient interest with the medical department to prevent any thing of that sort; and after promising to repeat his visit, he took his leave.

Towards night I began to fall into a slumber, but was every now and then startled out of it by the cries of the wounded, especially of such as were undergoing amputations.

In the bed next to mine lay an English officer, who had been wounded and taken prisoner; but he was then speechless, and died during the night. On my other side lay a German, an officer in the French service, whose skull had been fractured. He sung and conversed to himself in the wildest manner imaginable; and, about midnight, started out of bed, and marched up and down the room in a state of delirium, quite alarming to the rest of us. He also died in a short time.

Sleep came upon me at last; but it was a sleep of horrors. The various scenes of the preceding day, mixed up with the phantoms of imagination, passed in dire review before me. My friends seemed falling around me ;-the thunders of battle were in my ears, and we seemed retreating and

closely pursued by the enemy's cavalry. From these imaginary horrors, a return to real pain was a relief. I awoke towards morning with a burning thirst, and the taste of sulphur in my throat, in consequence of the smoke which I had breathed the preceding day. I was amply supplied with lemonade; but my fair attendants allowed me scarce any thing to eat, for fear, as they informed me, of fever.

About ten o'clock at night, I observed several officers enter the hospital, and bid adieu to their wounded companions, by which I guessed the French army were about to evacuate Toulouse. Shortly afterwards, there were symptoms of commotion without-the movement of a great army, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, through the narrow streets, with the confusion attending such a scene, produced a great noise, like the roar of the sea after a storm. I listened to the wild sound for hours, till at last it began to wax faint, and die away through the night, when I again sunk into a slumber. On awakening in the morning, I observed a number of priests in the act of administering extreme unction to the dying men, by whom I was surrounded; and the moment any of them expired, he was carried out, to make room for some other wounded man, by whom his bed was immediately occupied.

Yet, even in that house of mourning, there occurred one circumstance, which I still think of with peculiar pleasure. About mid-day, a young lady entered the hospital, probably to see some friend or acquaintance among the wounded. In proceeding along the room, she paused opposite to the place where I was lying, and, being informed

by one of the sick-nurses in attendance that I was an Englishman, she stept up to my bedside, and gazing on me with a look, in which curiosity was mingled with pity-all at once, yielding to the impulse of her feelings, she bent over me, and, throwing her arms around my neck, pressed her cheek to mine. It was a burst of nature, and but the action of a moment; for she raised herself, hastily, glided away, and I never saw her again. Yet, trivial as this circumstance may seem, it remains fair and fresh in my recollection, while weightier matters have been long forgotten; and there are times, even yet, when, in the silence of the night, and far away amidst the dreaming land, my couch seems spread in the hospital of Toulouse; and when, amidst that scene of suffering, my ear is tortured with shrieks of agony, and my sealed eye blasted with heart-rending sightsthen, too, smiling away these horrors, the vision of the young French girl breaks upon my dreams, and in all the vividness of reality do I behold her, like a ministering angel, bending over my couchtill once more I feel her dark tresses clustering over my brow, and the pressure of her soft warm cheek to mine. But to return :

It was not till the mists had cleared away, on the morning of the 12th, that the British army discovered the retreat of the enemy, and began to feel their way towards Toulouse, which they entered very quietly; and it was only by hearing their bands of music that I was made aware of their approach. About noon I was visited by some of my brother officers, who gave me an ac count of the termination of the battle, and the names of those who had fallen. Though I was

no longer a prisoner, the state of my health was such as to prevent my removal from the hospital, where I remained for ten days. On the 12th I heard the sound of cannon at a distance, and must own I felt a kind of pleasure in supposing that it proceeded from some of our artillery who had come up with the enemy.

For several succeeding days, hour after hour, I heard our bands of music playing dead marches through the streets-so numerous were the deaths after the battle; and while, from the room in which I lay, I had a glimpse of the bright blue sky, and heard from without the hum of the world, and the sounds of life and joy, contrasted with the doleful strains which spake of shrouds and graves, and of them for whom light and life existed in vain, I felt as if it were doubly hard to die during the festival of Nature-to leave the "fair day and the green earth, with its leaves and flowers.

Meantime I was regularly visited by the French surgeons; and on the fourth day after the battle, they came to inspect my wound, bringing with them the instruments of amputation, in case such an operation should be necessary; but luckily it was not. During the period which I remained under their care, they showed me every possible kindness and attention; and when at length I was ordered to be removed to a private house, on which I had received a billet, in order to be under the inspection of the regimental surgeons, they seemed hurt that I should leave the hospital, and made particular inquiries whether or not I had any cause of complaint against them. I also received daily visits from a French lady, a married woman, and the mother of a family, who brought me a re

gular supply of soups, oranges, spunge-cakes, &c.; so that I may truly say, I could not possibly have received more attention and kindness, if I had been in my own country, and even among my own nearest relatives.

Some days after our troops entered Toulouse, I was waited upon by the chaplain of the division to which I belonged, whom some person had sent to me, supposing, perhaps, that I was dying. Associating the idea of the chaplain with that of death, I was not a little startled at seeing the reverend gentleman approach my bedside with a prayer-book in his hand, to proffer spiritual consolation. I assured him, with much eagerness, that I was not in any danger, and, for the present, did not require his assistance. He smiled good-humouredly, and said, as I did not seem disposed for prayers, he would, if I had no objections, give me the news of the day. He then informed me of the sortie which the enemy had made from Bayonne, after the battle of Toulouse-of the abdication of Napoleon, and the cessation of hostilities. Upon leaving the French hospital, I was removed to a private house, the only inmate of which that I ever saw was a maid-servant, who divided her attentions pretty equally betwixt myself and a pet frog which she kept in a large glass phial, as an ornament to the mantel-piece.

The details of a sick-bed are not interesting. Suffice it to say, that, after much pain and suffering, I was obliged, along with the other officers, to leave Toulouse about the 19th June-it being an article of the treaty of peace, that no British officer should remain there after that period. I was carried out of the town, and set down upon