Parade, Sir!-Parade, Sir!-There's a parade this morning, Sir!"

With these words, grumbled out by the unyielding leathern lungs of my servant, I was awakened from an agreeable dream in my barrack-room bed one morning about a quarter before eight o'clock.

"Parade! "I reflected a moment;"yes," said I," a punishment parade."

I proceeded to dress; and as I looked out of my window I saw that the morning was as gloomy and disagreeable as the duty we were about to perform. "Curse the punishment!- -curse the crimes!"-muttered I to myself.

I was soon shaved, booted, and belted. The parade-call was beaten, and in a moment I was in the barrack-yard.

The non-commissioned officers were marching their squads to the ground: the officers, like myself, were turning out: the morning was cold as well as foggy and there was a sullen, melancholy expression upon every man's countenance, indicative of the relish they had for a punishment parade: the faces of the officers, as upon all such occasions, were particularly serious: the women of the regiment were to be seen in silent groups at the barrack-windows--in short, every thing around appealed to the heart, and made it sick. Two soldiers were to receive three hundred lashes each! One of them, a corporal, had till now preserved a good character for many years in the regiment; but he had been in the present instance seduced into the commission of serious offences, by an associate of very bad character. Their crimes, arising doubtless from habits of intoxication, were, disobedience of orders, insolence to the sergeant on duty, and the making away with some of their necessaries.

The regiment formed on the parade, and we marched off in a few minutes to the riding-house, where the triangle was erected, about which the men formed a square, with the colonel, the adjutant, the surgeon, and the drummers in the centre.

"Attention!" roared out the colonel. The word, were it not that it was technically necessary, need not have been used, for the attention of all was most intense; and scarcely could the footsteps of the last men, closing in, be fairly said to bave broken the gloomy silence of the riding-house. The two prisoners were now marched into the centre of the square, escorted by a corporal and four men.

"Attention!" was again called, and the adjutant commanded to read the proceedings of the court-martial. When he had concluded, the colonel commanded the private to " strip."

The drummers now approached the triangle, four in number, and the senior took up the "cat in order to free the "tails from entanglement with each other.

Strip, sir!" repeated the colonel, having observed that the prisoner seemed reluctant to obey the first order.

"Colonel," replied he, in a determined tone, "I'll volunteer."*

"You'll volunteer, will you, sir?"

"Yes; sooner than I'll be flogged."

"I am not sorry for that. Such fellows as you can be of no use to the service except in Africa. Take him back to the guard-house, and let the necessary papers be made out for him immediately."

The latter sentence was addressed to the corporal of the guard who escorted the prisoners, and accordingly the man who volunteered was marched off, a morose frown and contemptuous sneer strongly marked on his countenance.

The colonel now addressed the other prisoner.

"You are the last man in the regiment I could have expected to find in this situation. I made you a corporal, sir, from a belief that you were a deserving man; and you had before you every hope of farther promotion; but you have committed such a crime that I must, though unwillingly, permit the sentence of the court which tried you to take its effect." Then turning to the sergeant-major, he ordered him to cut off the corporal's stripes from his jacket: this was done, and the prisoner then stripped without the slightest change in his stern but penitent countenance.

Every one of the regiment felt for the unfortunate corporal's situation for it was believed that nothing but intoxication, and the persuasion of the other prisoner who had volunteered, could have induced him to subject himself to the punishment he was about to receive, by committing such a breach of military law, as that of which he was convicted. The colonel himself, although apparently rigorous and determined, could not, by all his efforts, hide his regret that a good man should be thus punished the affected frown, and the loud voice in command, but ill concealed his

* Men under sentence of court-martial were allowed the option of either suffering the sentence, or volunteering to serve on the coast of Africa.

real feelings;-the struggle between the head and the heart was plainly to be seen; and had the head had but the smallest loophole to have escaped, the heart would have gained a victory. But no alternative was left; the man had been a corporal, and, therefore, was the holder of a certain degree of trust from his superiors: had he been a private only, the crime might have been allowed to pass with impunity, on account of his former good character; but, as the case stood, the Colonel could not possibly pardon him, much as he wished to do so. No officer was more averse to flogging in any instance, than he was; and whenever he could avert that punishment, consistent with his judgment, which at all times was regulated by humanity, he would gladly do it. Flogging was in his eyes an odious punishment, but he found that the total abolition of it was impossible; he therefore held the power over the men, but never used it when it could be avoided. His regiment was composed of troublesome spirits; and courts-martial were frequent: so were sentences to the punishment of the lash; but seldom, indeed, were those punishments carried into execution; for if the Colonel could find no fair pretext in the previous conduct of the criminal, to remit his sentence, he would privately request the Captain of his company to intercede for him when about to be tied up to the triangle: thus placing the man under a strong moral obligation to the officer under whose more immediate command he was: and in general, this proved far more salutary than the punishment ever could have done.

It is not flogging that should be abolished in the army, but the cruel and capricious opinions which move the lash. Humanity and sound judgment are the best restrictions upon this species of punishment; and when they are more frequently brought into action than they have formerly been, there will be but few dissentient opinions upon military discipline.

The prisoner was now stripped and ready to be tied, when the Colonel asked him why he did not volunteer for Africa, with the other culprit.

46

No, Sir," replied the man; "I've been a long time in the regiment, and I'll not give it up for three hundred lashes; not that I care about going to Africa. I deserve my punishment, and I'll bear it; but I'll not quit the regiment yet, Colonel." This sentiment, utterly in a subdued but manly manner, was applauded by a smile of satisfaction from both officers and men; but most of all by the old Colonel, who took great pains to show the contrary. His eyes, although shaded by a frown, beamed with pleasure. He bit his nether lip; he shook his head-but all would not do; he could not look displeased, if he had pressed his brows down to the bridge of his nose; for he felt flattered that the prisoner thus openly preferred a flogging to quitting him and his regiment.

The man now presented his hands to be tied up to the top of the triangle, and his legs below the cords were passed round them in silence, and all was ready. I saw the Colonel at this moment beckon to the surgeon, who approached, and both whispered a moment.

Three drummers now stood beside the triangle, and the sergeant, who was to give the word for each lash, at a little distance opposite.

The first drummer began, and taking three steps forward, applied the lash to the soldier's back-" one.'

Again he struck-" two."

Again, and again, until twenty-five were called by the sergeant. Then came the second drummer, and he performed his twenty-five. Then came the third, who was a stronger and a more heavy striker than his coadjutors in office: this drumm.er brought the blood out upon the right shoulder-blade, which perceiving, he struck lower on the back; but the surgeon ordered him to strike again upon the bleeding part I thought this was cruel; but I learnt after, from the surgeon himself, that it gave much less pain to continue the blows as directed, than to strike upon the untouched skin.

The poor fellow bore without a word his flagellation, holding his head down upon his breast, both his arms being extended, and tied at the wrists above his head. At the first ten or twelve blows, he never moved a muscle; but about the twenty-fifth, he clenched his teeth and cringed a little from the lash. During the second twentyfive, the part upon which the cords fell became blue, and appeared thickened, for the whole space of the shoulder-blade and centre of the back; and before the fiftieth blow was struck, we could hear a smothered groan from the poor sufferer, evidently caused by his efforts to stifle the natural exclamations of acute pain. The third striker, as I said, brought the blood; it oozed from the swollen skin, and moistened the cords which opened its way from the veins. The Colonel directed a look at the MAY, 1827.

I

drummer, which augured nothing advantageous to his interest; and on the fifth of his twenty-five, cried out to him, "Halt, Sir! you know as much about using the cat as you do of your sticks." Then addressing the Adjutant, he said, "Send that fellow away to drill tell the drum-major to give him two hours additional practice with the sticks every day for a week, in order to bring his hand into-a-proper move

ment."

The drummer slunk away at the order of the Adjutant, and one of the others took up the cat. The Colonel now looked at the surgeon, and I could perceive a slight nod pass, in recognition of something previously arranged between them. This was evidently the case; for the latter instantly went over to the punished man, and having asked him a question or two, proceeded formally to the Colonel, and stated something in a low voice: upon which the drummers were ordered to take the man down. This was accordingly done; and when about to be removed to the regimental hospital, the Colonel addressed him thus: "Your punishment, sir, is at an end; you may thank the surgeon's opinion for being taken down so soon.' (Every one knew this was only a pretext.) "I have only to observe to you, that as you have been always, previous to this fault, a good man, I would recommend you to conduct yourself well for the future, and I promise to hold your promotion open to you as before."

The poor fellow replied that he would do so, and burst into tears, which he strove in vain to hide.

Wonder not that the hard cheek of a soldier was thus moistened by a tear; the heart was within his bosom, and these tears came from it. The lash could not force one from his burning eyelid; but the word of kindness-the breath of tender feeling from his respected Colonel, dissolved the stern soldier to the grateful and contrite penitent.

We shall close our notice with an extract from the Recollections in the Peninsula. It is a' day after the battle,' and shows well the other side of the tapestry. On the right side, glory, heroism, power, and genius. On the reverse, wounds, lamentation, and distress; the brilliancy of ne side is the darkness of the other; power is reversed by weakness, hope by despair, life by death.

The day after the battle, I, in company with another, rode out to view the ground where the armies had so recently contended. It was strewed with dead and wounded, accoutrements and arms; a great part of the latter broken. At those points where obstinate fighting took place, the ground was covered with bodies; a great number of wounded, both French, English, and Portuguese, lay along the road, groaning and craving water. The village of Gamarra Mayor was shattered with heavy shot, and the bridge covered with dead, as well as its arches choked up with bodies and accoutrements. We returned by the main road, to where the centre of the army was engaged. Here were the French huts, and their broken provisions, half cooked, lying about; this was a level interspersed with little hillocks and brushwood: we' were then surrounded with dead and wounded; several cars were employed in collecting the latter. A few straggling peasants could be seen at a distance, watching an opportunity for plunder-there was a dreadful silence over the scene. A poor Irishwoman ran up to one of the surgeons near us, and with tears in her eyes, asked where was the hospital of the eighty-second regiment-I think it was the eighty-secondshe wrung her hands, and said that the men told her she would find her husband wounded; and she had travelled back for the purpose. The surgeon told her that the only hospital on the field was in a cottage, to which he pointed; but informed her that all the wounded would be conveyed to Vittoria. The half-frantic woman proceeded towards the cottage, over the bodies which lay in her way, and had not gone more than about fifty yards, when she fell on her face, and uttered the most bitter cries. We hastened to her she was embracing the body of a serjeant, a fine tall fellow who lay on his face. "Oh! it's my husband-it's my husband!" said she; "and he is dead and cold." One of the men turned the body on his face; the serjeant had been shot in the neck, and his ankle was shattered. The lamentations of the woman were of the most heart-rending kind, but not loud. She continued to sit by her lifeless husband, gazing on his pale countenance, and moving her head and body to and fro, in the most bitter agony of woe:-she talked to the dead in the most affectionate language-of her orphans-of her home-and of their former happiness. After a considerable time, by persuasion, we got her upon one of the cars with the wounded, and placed the body of her husband beside her; this we did because she expressed a

wish to have it buried by a clergyman. She thanked us more by looks than words, and the melancholy load proceeded slowly to Vittoria.

In our way back to the town, my companion's attention was attracted by a dead Portuguese; he raised up the body, and asked me to look through it—I did absolutely look through it. A cannon-ball had passed into the breast and out at the back-and so rapid must have been its transit, from its forming such a clear aperture—in circumference about twelve inches-that the man must have been close to the canon's mouth when he was shot-it spoke volumes for the courage of the troops.

The hospital at Vittoria that evening presented a sad spectacle; not only was part of it filled with wounded, but the streets all round it-about two thousand men, including those of the French with those of the Allies. Owing to the rapid, and perhaps unexpected advance of the army, there were only three surgeons to attend this vast number of wounded, for the first two days after the battle; and, from the same reason, no provisions were to be had for them for a week! The commissariat had not provided for the exigency, and the small portion of bread that could be purchased was sold for three shillings per pound. From these casualties, I often thought since, that in cases of expected general actions, if one half of both medical and commissariat staff were under orders to remain on the field until relieved, instead of following their respective divisions, it would obviate such privations. However, there is every excuse in this case, considering the unexpected rapidity of the advance. No fault whatever can be laid to either of the departments in this instance: it was wholly owing to advancing to such distance beyond Vittoria, as required too long a time to retrace.

In going through the hospital, I saw in one room not less than thirty hussars-of the 10th and 15th, I think—all wounded by lances; and one of them had nineteen wounds in his body:-the surgeon had already amputated his left arm. One of the men described the way in which so many of their brigade became wounded. He said, that in charging the rear of the enemy as they were retreating, the horses had to leap up a bank, nearly breast high, to make good the level above. At this moment a body of Polish lancers, headed by a general, dashed in upon them, the general crying out, in broken English, "Come on! I care not for your fine hussar brigade." They fought for a considerable time, and although ultimately the lancers retired and left the ground to the hussars, yet the latter lost many killed and wounded. "That man," said the hussar," who lies there with the loss of his arm and so dreadfully wounded, fought a dozen lancers, all at him at once, and settled some of them; at last he fell, and the lancers were about to kill him, when the general cried out to take him to the rear, for he was a brave fellow. The skirmish continued, and the general cut that man there across the nose, in fighting singly with him—but he killed the general after all."

I turned and saw a young hussar, with a gash across his nose, and he confirmed what his comrade said. The man who had the nineteen wounds, I have since heard, recovered: he seemed much to regret the fate of the general who saved his life. I saw this brave officer's body buried the next day in the principal church of Vittoria. In passing through another part of the hospital, I perceived a Portuguese female lying on the ground upon straw, in the midst of numbers of wounded men. 1 inquired of her, was she wounded. She pointed to her breast, and showed me where the bullet had passed. I asked her how she received the shot, and was horror-struck when the dying woman informed me that it was her marido,-her own husband,-who shot her just as the action was commencing-she said he deliberately put the muzzle of his gun to her breast and fired! This may be false; I hope it is, for the sake of humanity:-it might be that the woman was plundering the dead; and perhaps killing the wounded, when some of the latter shot her. However, be the fact as it may, it was thus she told her story. She was in great pain, and I should think did not live much longer,

FLAGELLUM PARLIAMENTARIUM.*

Ir is a dangerous thing to print MSS. under the idea that it is done for the first time. The editor of this curious little pamphlet labours under an approach to this blunder. He certainly was not bound to know that there is in existence a printed pamphlet attributed to the

Flagellum Parliamentarium, being sarcastic Notices of nearly two hundred Members of the First Parliament after the Restoration A.D. 1661 to A.D. 1678. From a contemporary MS, in the British Museum. London, Nicholls, 1827, 12mo.

celebrated Andrew Marvel, which is more than a counterpart of the Flagellum; but had he known it, he, in all probability, would have permitted his discovery to sleep on in the catacombs of the British Museum.

The Parliament immediately succeeding the Restoration acquired, very justly, the name of the Pensioner Parliament: its title to this epithet is exceedingly well founded. The very journals of the House, as entered in the subsequent Parliament, have established its claims to it. Many of the particulars of bribery would naturally become known, and the undisguised gifts of place and office were, of course, matters of notoriety. One of the obvious means of opposition in resisting measures which they disapproved, was to proclaim to the world the motives under which the court party were probably acting. With this object, a pamphlet was printed under this title, "A seasonable Argument to persuade all the Grand Juries in England to petition for a new Parliament; or, a List of the principal Labourers in the great Design of Popery and Arbitrary Power, who have betrayed their Country to the Conspirators, and bargained with them to maintain a Standing Army in England, under the Command of the bigotted Popish Duke, who, by the Assistance of Lord Lauderdale's Scotch Army, the Forces in Ireland, and those in France, hopes to bring all back to Rome," Amsterdam, 1677, 4to. This pamphlet we have not at the present moment access to, but in Harris's Life of Charles II. a sufficient number of particulars are given to show that the printed work embraces the other. Harris speaks of the pamphlet being in his time very scarce and curious, and proceeds to make some copious quotations from it, to which we shall allude, after having given an account of the Flagellum. In it, as in the Seasonable Argument, the members are classed in counties, their characters delineated, and their gains specified. The language used is sufficiently plain, and, after the manners of the times, somewhat coarse. The expressions "Cully" for tool, and" Snip" for snack or bribe, are bandied about with much freedom. The editor speaks of his publication in the following terms, and ingeniously endeavours to determine the epoch at which it was written.

"In this tract, one hundred and seventy-eight Members of the Parliament summoned immediately after the Restoration, and which existed from 1661 to 1678, are named; accompanied by observations, illustrative of their respective characters, or explanatory of the motives which induced them to become the mere instruments of the Crown in the exercise of their senatorial duties. These notices bear undoubted evidence of the sagacity and extensive information of their author, and are remarkable for their laconic, but cutting severity. To what degree they may be deemed worthy of credit, it is impossible to decide, for the imputed crimes are of that secret and personal nature, as to render [which renders] it unlikely that proof of their having occurred can now be adduced; whilst many of the parties, however mischievous in their day, were far too insignificant to have received [to receive] the attention of historians. The manners of the period, however, afford strong grounds for believing in the total absence of moral worth with which so many of these individuals are charged; and it must be confessed that the idea generally entertained of the most eminent among them is strictly