Corunna
As the confusion in the streets increased from the pouring out from the houses and cellars of the camp-followers--women and children, together with men less drunk than their comrades, but still unable to walk steadily--who filled the air with shouts and drunken execrations, Colonel Corcoran rode along the line.

"Just look at that, boys," he said. "Isn't it better for you to be standing here like dacent men, ready to do your duty, than to be rolling about in a state like those drunken blackguards, for the sake of half an hour's pleasure? Sure it is enough to make every mother's son of you swear off liquor till ye get home again. When the French get inside the town there is not one of the drunken bastes that won't be either killed or marched away a thousand miles to a French prison, and all for half an hour's drink."

The lesson was indeed a striking one, and careless as many of the men were, it brought home to them with greater force than ever before in their lives, not only the folly but the degradation of drunkenness. A few minutes later, General Moore, who was riding up and down the line, inspecting the condition of the men in each regiment, came along.