Wilkie had visited Spain a few years earlier and produced three works set during the Peninsular War (1808-1814).

Around this time Wilkie shifted his style which previously echoed the genre paintings of David Teniers the Younger but now used the oil sketches of Rubens as an inspiration.

The new painting showed the return, on a mule, of one of the Spanish guerrillas who fought against Napoleon's invading French forces.

Wounded and tired, he is assisted by the confessor who had sent him on his mission in the earlier painting and two women, including his wife.

It remains in the Royal Collection and was recorded hanging in Buckingham Palace in 1858 during the reign of Queen Victoria.