Various

“ But, alas! we soon found that the people of the town had risen against us, and ten or twelve broke in with their lances, and killed five of the boat's crew and the man who took care of the boat! The supercargo, running out of the house to get to the King, was thrust through by one of these murderous natives, and died immediately. I myself, being knocked down by the fall of the others, lay among the dead like one dead. ”

“ What maid retrieve when man’s flushed hope is lost!
Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul,
Foiled by a woman’s hand before a battered wall?’
For the story of Mary Ambree we must leave the chroniclers—who to their own loss and shame never mention her at all—and take refuge with the poets. From them we learn all we need to know, and it is quickly told. Her lover was slain treacherously in the war between Spain and Holland, the English being then allies of the Dutch ”

“ When the siege was lifted and the city free a pension was settled on Augustina, together with the daily pay of an artilleryman, and she was permitted to wear upon her sleeve an embroidered shield bearing the arms of Saragossa. Lord Byron, in his poem ‘Childe Harold,’ has described her beauty her heroism, and the desperate courage with which she defended the breach;
‘Who can avenge so well a leader’s fall? ”

“ So I asked those negroes who understood a little English if they had killed any on board. They said 'Yes,' and told me that the blacks in a canoe that went to our ship to trade had lances hidden, and fell upon the captain and the mate, who suspected nothing, and killed them and some others of our men, but the rest had time to arm themselves, and so drove the blacks away. ”

“ My lodging was under a tree on the hard ground, where I slept for two years and nine months, and sometimes in the year it would rain for three months together, or only become fine for an hour or so—yet for all that I lay under the tree still. ”