Note 262 — Chapter I

A good picture of the state of Central Spain in January and February 1813 may be got from the Memoirs of d’Espinchel, of the 2nd Hussars, an officer charged with the raising of contributions in La Mancha—a melancholy record of violence and treachery, assassination by guerrilleros and reprisals by the French, of villages plundered and magistrates shot. D’Espinchel had mainly to deal with the bands of El Medico and the Empecinado. See his Souvenirs militaires, pp. 86-110.