Note 12 — Chapter IX

It is asserted by the French, in their official account, that, after many days fighting, they won possession of many cloisters which had been fortified, three-fourths of the city, the arsenal, and all the magazines; and that the peaceable inhabitants, encouraged by these advantages, hoisted a white flag, and came forward to offer terms of capitulation; but that they were murdered by the insurgents; for this is the name which the French, and the tyrant whom they served, applied to a people fighting in defence of their country, and of whatever could be dear to them. Unquestionably, if any traitors had thus ventured to show themselves in the heat of the contest, they would have been put to death as certainly as they would have deserved it; and, if the thing had occurred, it would be one fact more to be recorded in honour of the Zaragozans; but there is no other authority for it than the French official account, in which account the result of the siege is totally suppressed. The circumstance, had it really taken place, would not have been omitted in Mr. Vaughan’s Narrative, and in the accounts published by the Spaniards.