To quell a bit my own post, to emphasize the horror of the times and the pending and eternal accusation of national bias, I transcribe the following from Oman's A History of the Peninsular War (vol. 7 - p. 140):

"A British officer, marching near a Portuguese brigade recounts that he arrived too late to prevent a caçador from perpretrating the business-like murder of a French family, in the first farm that he came to. The man then handed himself into arrest. He explained that his father, mother, and sister had all been killed by the French during Masséna's retreat in 1811, and he had made a vow to revenge them. He was tried and hanged, apparently satisfied to have redeemed his pledge. Gleig, p.145" .

There...

Jorge