Identifier: lettersfromportu00port (find matches)
Title: Letters from Portugal and Spain : written during the march of the British troops under Sir John Moore : with a map of the route, and appropriate engravings
Year: 1809 (1800s)
Authors: Porter, Robert Ker, Sir, 1777-1842 Bellasis, Daniel Hutchins (bookplate)
Subjects: Peninsular War, 1807-1814
Publisher: London : Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme ...
Contributing Library: Fisher - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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any hours longer. During thisrepose I write these hasty narratives of ourmovements, and shall address you again atmy next leisure moment. Meanwhile, fare-wel. x £74 LETTER XXI. Corunna, January, I8O9. Famine, pestilence, and death are said tobe three furies ever attendant on war! We-have found the remark a just one: for havingencountered famine and death in almost everyshape, this part of the land is now threatenedwith a direful pestilence. We have been thesecondary causes of this impending plague;but the people who misled us into the situa-tion, being the origin of our aceumulate4evils, they are certainly the primary causes ofjdl these dismal consequences. Our cavalry and the artillery horses on en-tering this city were found in such a state ofdebility and irremediable lameness from thewant of shoes, that many fell dead in thestreets, and more were obliged to be shot inmercy to their sufferings. The streets, the grand square, and piazzasare now filled with their putrifying bodies. *
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£74 horrible is the sight, and more horribleis the sound, For not a minute of the day-is permitted to elapse without our hearingthe report of some pistol or musket depriv-ing these once noble creatures of life. Theheavy rains have swollen and burst many ofthe carcasses; and the infected air hovers sorancorously about our heads, that it is almostimpossible to pass in any direction withoutfeeling violent convulsions of stomach, andprognosticating all the calamitous effects ofimbibed putrefaction. Should we escape, as from only a short so-journ here we probably may, I cannot calcu-late on a similar good fortune befriendingthe natives of the town. They will be left tothe full effluvia of more than 400 lifeless horsesand mules; and must of course respire inevery breath all the diseases which a death-tainted atmosphere engenders. After this enforced slaughter of our faith-ful quadrupede friends, we soon foresaw workof a more congenial description. Owing toour failure in the destruction of

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