GARRISON OF DENIA.

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CHAPTER VIII.

DENIA A GARRISON, BY ORDER OF KING CHARLES-EXTRAORDINARY STORM OF LOCUSTS-SINGULAR MINE EXPLOSION AT ALICANT-SAINTE CLEMENTE DE LA MANCHA RENDERED FAMOUS BY THE RENOWNED DON MICHAEL CERVANTESINTERESTING ACCOUNTS-SURPRISING FLIGHT OF EAGLES—

THE INQUISITION.

DENIA was the first town, that, in our way to Barcelona, declared for King Charles; and was then, by his order, made a garrison. The town is but small, and surrounded with a thin wall; so thin, that I have known a cannon-ball pierce through it at once.

When I arrived at Denia, I found a Spaniard governor of the town, whose name has slipt my memory, though his behaviour merited everlasting annals. Major Percival, an Englishman, commanded in the castle, and on my coming there, I understood it had been agreed between them, that in case of a siege, which they apprehended, the town should be defended wholly by Spaniards, and the castle by the English.

I had scarce been there three weeks before those expectations were answered. The place was invested by Count D'Alfelt, and Major-general Mahoni; two days after which, they opened trenches on the east side of the town. I was necessitated, upon their so doing, to order the demolishment of some houses on that side, that I might erect a battery to point upon their trenches, the better to annoy them. I did so; and it did the intended service; for with that, and two others, which I raised upon the castle (from all which we fired incessantly, and with great success), the besiegers were sufficiently incommoded.

The governor of the town (a Spaniard, as I said before, and with a Spanish garrison) behaved very gallantly; insomuch, that what was said of the Prince of Hesse, when he so bravely defended Gibraltar against the joint forces of France and Spain, might be said of him, that he was governor, engineer, gunner, and bombardier all in one: for no man

could exceed him, either in conduct or courage. Nor were the Spaniards under him less valiant or vigilant; for in case the place was taken, expecting but indifferent quarter, they fought with bravery, and defended the place to admiration.

The enemy had answered our fire with all the ardour imaginable; and having made a breach, that, as we thought, was practicable, a storm was expected every hour. Preparing against which, to the great joy of all the inhabitants, and the surprise of the whole garrison, and without our being able to assign the least cause, the enemy suddenly raised the siege, and withdrew from a place which those within imagined in great danger.

The siege thus abdicated (if I may use a modern phrase), I was resolved to improve my time, and make the best provision I could against any future attack. To that purpose I made several new fortifications, together with proper casements for our powder, all which rendered the place much stronger, though time too soon showed me that strength itselt must yield to fortune.

Surveying those works, and my workmen, I was one day standing on the great battery, when casting my eye toward the Barbary coast, I observed an odd sort of greenish cloud making to the Spanish shore; not like other clouds, with rapidity or swiftness; but with a motion so slow, that sight itself was a long time before it would allow it such.

At last

it came just over my head, and interposing between the sun and me, so thickened the air, that I had lost the very sight of day. At this moment it had reached the land; and though very near me in my imagination, it began to dissolve, and lose of its first tenebrity, when, all on a sudden, there fell such a vast multitude of locusts, as exceeded the thickest storm of hail or snow that I ever saw. All around me was immediately covered with those crawling creatures; and they yet continued to fall so thick, that with the swing of my cane I knocked down thousands. It is scarce imaginable the havoc I made in a very little space of time; much less conceivable is the horrid desolation which attended the visitation of those animalculæ. There was not, in a day or two's time, the least leaf to be seen upon a tree, nor any green thing in a garden. Nature seemed buried in her own ruins, and the vegetable world to be supporters only to her monument. I never saw the hardest winter, in those parts, attended with any equal

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desolation. When, glutton-like, they had devoured all that should have sustained them, and the more valuable part of God's creation (whether weary with gorging, or over-thirsty with devouring, I leave to philosophers), they made to ponds, brooks, and standing pools, there revenging their own rape upon nature, upon their own vile carcases. In every one of these you might see them lie in heaps like little hills; drowned indeed, but attended with stenches so noisome, that it gave the distracted neighbourhood too great reason to apprehend yet more fatal consequences. A pestilential infection is the dread of every place, but especially of all parts upon the Mediterranean. The priests, therefore, repaired to a little chapel, built in the open fields, to be made use of on such-like occasions, there to deprecate the miserable cause of this dreadful visitation. In a week's time, or thereabouts, the stench was over, and everything but verdant nature in its pristine order.

Some few months after this, and about eight months from the former siege, Count D'Alfelt caused Denia to be again invested; and being then sensible of all the mistakes he had before committed, he now went about his business with more regularity and discretion. The first thing he set upon, and it was the wisest thing he could do, was to cut off our communication with the sea. This he did, and thereby obtained what he much desired. Next, he caused his batteries to be erected on the west side of the town, from which he plied it so furiously, that in five days' time a practicable breach was made; upon which they stormed and took it. The governor, who had so bravely defended it in the former siege, fortunately for him, had been removed; and Francis Valero, now in his place, was made prisoner of war with all his garrison.

After the taking the town, they erected batteries against the castle, which they kept plied with incessant fire, both from cannon and mortars. But what most of all plagued us, and did us most mischief, was the vast showers of stones sent among the garrison from their mortars. These, terrible in bulk and size, did more execution than all the rest put together. The garrison could not avoid being somewhat disheartened at this uncommon way of rencounter, yet, to a man, declared against hearkening to any proposals of surrender, the governor excepted; who, having selected more

VOL. II.

D D

treasure than he could properly or justly call his own, was the only person that seemed forward for such a motion. He had more than once thrown out expressions of such a nature, but without any effect. Nevertheless, having at last secretly obtained a peculiar capitulation for himself, bag, and baggage, the garrison was sacrificed to his private interest, and basely given up prisoners of war. By these means, indeed, he saved his money, but lost his reputation; and soon after life itself. And sure everybody will allow the latter loss to be least, who will take pains to consider that it screened him from the consequential scrutinies of a council of war, which must have issued as the just reward of his demerits.

The garrison, being thus unaccountably delivered up and made prisoners, were dispersed different ways: some into Castile, others as far as Oviedo, in the kingdom of Leon. For my own part, having received a contusion in my breast, I was under a necessity of being left behind with the enemy, till I should be in a condition to be removed; and when that time came, I found myself agreeably ordered to Valencia.

As a prisoner of war, I must now bid adieu to the active part of the military life, and hereafter concern myself with descriptions of countries, towns, palaces, and men, instead of battles. However, if I take in my way actions of war, founded on the best authorities, I hope my interspersing such will be no disadvantage to my now more pacific Memoirs.

So soon as I arrived at Valencia, I wrote to our paymaster, Mr. Mead, at Barcelona, letting him know that I was become a prisoner, wounded, and in want of money. Nor could even all those circumstances prevail on me to think it long before he returned a favourable answer, in an order to Monsieur Zoulicafre, a banker, to pay me, on sight, fifty pistoles. But in the same letter he gave me to understand that those fifty pistoles were a present to me from General (afterwards Earl) Stanhope; and so indeed I found it, when I returned into England, my account not being charged with any part of it; but this was not the only test I received of that generous earl's generosity. And where's the wonder, as the world is compelled to own, that heroic actions and largeness of soul ever did discover and amply distinguish the genuine branches of that illustrious family?

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This recruit to me, however, was the more generous for being seasonable. Benefits are always doubled in their being easily conferred and well timed; and with such an allowance as I constantly had by the order of King Philip, as prisoner of war, viz., eighteen ounces of mutton per diem for myself, and nine for my man, with bread and wine in proportion, and especially in such a situation; all this, I say, was sufficient to invite a man to be easy, and almost forget his want of liberty; and much more so to me, if it be considered that that want of liberty consisted only in being debarred from leaving the pleasantest city in all Spain.

Here I met with the French engineer who made the mine under the rock of the castle at Alicant; that fatal mine, which blew up General Richards, Colonel Syburg, Colonel Thornicroft, and at least twenty more officers. And yet, by the account that engineer gave me, their fate was their own choosing; the general, who commanded at that siege, being more industrious to save them than they were to be saved. He endeavoured it many ways: he sent them word of the mine, and their readiness to spring it; he over and over sent them offers of leave to come and take a view of it, and

inspect it. Notwithstanding all which, though Colonel Thornicroft, and Captain Page, a French engineer in the service of King Charles, pursued the invitation, and were permitted to view it, yet would they not believe; but reported on their return, that it was a sham mine, a feint only, to intimidate them to a surrender, all the bags being filled with sand instead of gunpowder.

The very day on which the besiegers designed to spring the mine, they gave notice of it; and the people of the neighbourhood ran up in crowds to an opposite hill in order to see it nevertheless, although those in the castle saw all this, they still remained so infatuated, as to imagine it all done only to affright them. At length the fatal mine was sprung, and all who were upon that battery lost their lives; and, among them, those I first mentioned. The very recital hereof made me think within myself, Who can resist his fate?

That engineer added farther, that it was with an incredible difficulty that he prepared that mine; that there were in the concavity thirteen hundred barrels of powder; notwithstanding which, it made no great noise without,