LETTER XI.

La Bourgade, Sept. 12.

The delayed departure of the officers whose regiments have been draughted, affords me an opportunity of addressing to you some additional notes by the same conveyance. They have been detained in the expectation that some of them might have remained with the 39th regiment, in order to have increased its strength in officers, in proportion to its increase of privates; but the Commander in Chief not acceding to this arrangement, they are all ordered to embark, without loss of time, for England, and to take with them the sergeants and drummers; yet, on account of the extreme urgency of this sickly period, and the very limited number of assistants we have for hospital duty, we are allowed to detain the surgeon and mate of the 99th regiment; without whom, indeed, we must have been reduced to the greatest distress; for the surgeon of this corps has been my best support from the time of our arrival, being the only commissioned medical officer I have had with me, during the whole of our busy service.

Respecting the destination of the other gentlemen of the hospital staff and myself, I have nothing new to add. Incertitude is still the order of the day. We remain without receiving either pay or allowances, and subsist almost wholly upon our salt rations. Fortunately this is one of the few countries where but little money is required, or I should rather say, where if a man had much, it might be difficult to spend it. Fruit and vegetables are abundant, but the riches of Crœsus could not procure a regular supply of fresh animal provisions for our table. For my own