"The day before I was introduced to this extraordinary female," says Sir John, "she had been entertained at dinner by Admiral Purvis on board his flag-ship.... As she received a pension from Government, and also the pay of an artilleryman, the admiral considered her as a military character, and, much to his credit, received her with the honours of that profession. Upon her reaching the deck, the marines were drawn up and manœuvred before her. She appeared quite at home, regarding them with a steady eye, and speaking in terms of admiration of their neatness, and soldier-like appearance. Upon examining the guns, she observed of one of them, as other women would speak of a cap, 'My gun,' alluding to one with which she had effected a considerable havoc among the French at Saragossa, 'was not so nice and clean as this.'"
Agostina lived to the age of sixty-nine, and died at Cuesta in July, 1857; when her remains were interred with all the honours due to her public position as a Spanish patriot.
Although the women of Saragossa had been ordered to leave the town in November, 1808, previous to the commencement of the second siege, most of them remained, and assisted bravely in raising fortifications. During the siege they exceeded even their past valour. In the short space of two months no fewer than six hundred women and children perished by the bayonets and musket-balls of the French; without reckoning the thousands who owed their deaths to the frequent explosions of powder-magazines and the constant bursting of shells in the streets. A girl named Manuella Sanchez was shot through the heart. A noble lady named Benita, who commanded one of the female corps raised to carry round provisions, to bear away the wounded, and to fight in the streets, narrowly escaped death again and again; and at the last she only survived the dangers of war to die of grief on hearing that her daughter had been slain.
All through the Peninsula women displayed the same Amazonian prowess. Those towns which ventured to resist the Imperial Eagles were as much influenced in their stubborn patriotism by the courage of the women as by the exciting speeches of the priests or the promise of assistance from England. And all those places which were besieged by the French were defended by women as well as by men. In 1810 there was, it is said, a woman holding the commission of Captain in a Spanish regiment.