text:  We found the traces of those foraying excursions in the fragments of burned mills a favourite object of destruction with the French--for what purpose I never could comprehend except the pleasure of seeing them burn--in cottages unroofed for the sake of the thatch; in broken moveables and in some instances in the skeletons of horses and remnants of arms; for the peasantry were not always patient sufferers and some of the smaller detachments of the plunderers had met with severe retaliation