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Updated: June 14, 2025
Your suggestion quite justifies the opinion that I had formed of you from the brief narrative that you gave me of the battle of Corunna. For the present, gentlemen, I have appointed Mr. O'Connor as an extra aide-de-camp on my staff.
The mate and owner of the Panda was Don Bernardo De Soto, a native of Corunna, Spain, and son, of Isidore De Soto, manager of the royal revenue in said city; he was now twenty-five years of age, and from the time he was fourteen had cultivated the art of navigation, and at the age of twenty-two had obtained the degree of captain in the India service.
"This is luck!" he exclaimed; "I had never given the thing a thought before." On his arrival at Corunna he had thrown away the riding-boots he had bought at Salamanca. The constant rains had so shrunk them that he could no longer wear them without pain, and he had taken again to the boots that he carried in his valise.
Beresford held the citadel until the 18th, and then embarked with his troops and all the wounded; the people of Corunna, remaining true to their promises, manned the ramparts of the town until the last British soldier was on board. The British loss in the battle was estimated at 800 men; that of the French was put down at 3,000.
"Sir Arthur is going down to Oporto to-morrow, where it is likely that he will learn more about the situation than he did at Corunna. Fane says that he hopes we shall soon be ashore, as the general is not the man to let the grass grow under his feet."
His memory, or, if you will, his invention, was never at fault; and from the siege of Seringapatam to the battle of Corunna he was perfect. Besides this, he possessed a mind retentive of even the most trifling details of his profession, from the formation of a regiment to the introduction of a new button, from the laying down of a parallel to the price of a camp-kettle, he knew it all.
Here he paused as expecting some comment but finding me silent, continued: "My father was killed with Sir John Moore, at Corunna, and I was brought up by a curmudgeonly uncle, the most preposterous unavuncular uncle that ever bullied a defenceless nephew to the dogs.
The news of the coming Armada called Drake again to action. In April 1587 he set sail with thirty small barks, burned the storeships and galleys in the harbour of Cadiz, stormed the ports of the Faro, and was only foiled in his aim of attacking the Armada itself by orders from home. A descent upon Corunna however completed what Drake called his "singeing of the Spanish king's beard."
I saw even many who under common circumstances, would have possessed no interest nor excited any curiosity, but now, connected as they were with the great events occurring around them, absolutely became heroes; and it was with a strange, wild throbbing of excitement I listened to the details of movements and marches, whose objects I knew not, but in which the magical words, Corunna, Vimeira, were mixed up, and gave to the circumstances an interest of the highest character.
At Zamora he received from Philip III. a most cordial reception, and was assured that in a very short time a more powerful armament than Don Juan's should sail with him from Corunna. He returned to that port, from which he could every day look out across the western waves that lay between him and home, and where he could be kept constantly informed of what was passing in Ireland.
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