After beating about for several days in a gale of wind, and splitting all their sails, they were blown back, wrecked on the coast, and, on being retaken, were shamefully treated by the gendarmes. We made a subscription for them, and the poor fellows with hearts of oak, not to be subdued, gave us three cheers, adding—"Never mind, gentlemen, we'll catch 'em again at Trafalgar, some of these days." Passing through Quesnoy and Landrecy, we arrived at Valenciennes, about three P.M. August the 17th, 1808. Being soon after joined by the rest of the party, we were conducted with great form to the citadel; there to take up our abode with about fourteen hundred men, who occupied the barracks. A small house, divided into six apartments, each containing three or four beds, was, however, appropriated to the mids; here it was intended we should exist during the war, and no distinction whatever was to be made between us "tres mauvais sujets," and the seamen, except the permission of walking on the rampart fronting the town. I was not long in
