[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected. Hyphenation and accentuation have been standardised, allother inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spellinghas been maintained. There is no Chapter IV in this book. The errata changes have been included in the file. ] ADVENTURES IN THE RIFLE BRIGADE, IN THE PENINSULA, FRANCE, AND THE NETHERLANDS, FROM 1809 TO 1815. BY CAPTAIN J. KINCAID. LONDON: T. AND W. BOONE, STRAND. MDCCCXXX. TO MAJOR-GEN. SIR ANDREW BARNARD, K. C. B. COLONEL OF THE FIRST BATTALION RIFLE BRIGADE, AND ITS LEADER DURING A LONG AND BRILLIANT PERIOD OF ITS HISTORY, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY HIS VERY OBEDIENT AND VERY OBLIGED HUMBLE SERVANT, J. KINCAID. ADVERTISEMENT. In tracing the following scenes, I have chiefly drawn on thereminiscences of my military life, and endeavoured faithfully toconvey to the mind of the reader the impression which they made on myown at the time of their occurrence. Should any errors, as to dates ortrifling circumstances, have inadvertently crept into my narrative, Ihope they will be ascribed to want of memory, rather than to anywilful intention to mislead. I am aware, that some objections may betaken to my style; for "Rude am I in my speech, And little bless'd with the set phrase of peace: For, since these arms of mine had seven years' pith, Till now, some nine moons wasted, they have us'd Their dearest action in the tented field: And little of this world can I speak, More than pertains to feats of broil and battle; And therefore little shall I grace my cause In speaking for myself; yet, by your gracious patience, I will a round unvarnished tale deliver, " CONTENTS. Page CHAPTER I. 1 Joined the Rifles. Walcheren Expedition. A young Soldier. A MarineView. Campaign in South Beeveland. Retreat to Scotland. CHAP. II. 4 Rejoin the Regiment. Embark for the Peninsula. Arrival in the Tagus. The City of Lisbon, with its Contents. Sail for Figuera. Landingextraordinary. Billet ditto. The City of Coimbra. A hard Case. A coldCase, in which a favourite Scotch Dance is introduced. Climate. TheDuke of Wellington. CHAP. III. 15 Other People, Myself, and my Regiment. Retreat to the Lines of TorresVedras. Leave Coimbra, followed by a select group of Natives. Ford theStreets of Condacia in good spirits. A Provost-Marshal and hisfavourites. A fall. Convent of Batalha. Turned out of Allenquer. Passed through Sobral. Turned into Arruda. Quartering of the LightDivision, and their Quarters at Arruda. Burial of an only Child. Linesof Torres Vedras. Difference of opinion between Massena and Myself. Military Customs. CHAP. V. 38 Campaign of 1811 opens. Massena's Retreat. Wretched Condition of theInhabitants on the Line of March. Affairs with the Enemy, near Pombal. Description of a Bivouac. Action near Redinha. Destruction of Condaciaand Action near it. Burning of the Village of Illama, and Misery ofits Inhabitants. Action at Foz D'Aronce. Confidential Servants withDonkey-Assistants. CHAP. VI. 61 Passage of the Mondego. Swearing to a large Amount. Two Prisoners, with their Two Views. Two Nuns, Two Pieces of Dough, and Two Kisses. AHalt. Affair near Frexedas. Arrival near Guarda. Murder. A straySentry. Battle of Sabugal. Spanish and Portuguese Frontiers. Blockadeof Almeida. Battle-like. Current Value of Lord Wellington's Nose. Battle of Fuentes D'Onor. The Day after the Battle. A grave Remark. The _Padre's_ House. Retreat of the Enemy. CHAP. VII. 83 March to Estremadura. At Soito, growing Accommodations for Man andBeast. British Taste displayed by Portuguese Wolves. False Alarm. Luxuries of Roquingo Camp. A Chaplain of the Forces. Return towardsthe North. Quarters near Castello de Vide. Blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo. Village of Atalya; Fleas abundant; Food scarce. Advance of the FrenchArmy. Affairs near Guinaldo. Our Minister administered to. Anunexpected Visit from our General and his Followers. End of theCampaign of 1811. Winter Quarters. CHAP. VIII. 100 Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. The Garrison of an Outwork relieved. Spendingan Evening abroad. A Musical Study. An Addition to Soup. A short Cut. Storming of the Town. A sweeping Clause. Advantages of leading aStorming Party. Looking for a Customer. Disadvantages of being astormed Party. Confusion of all Parties. A waking Dream. Death ofGeneral Crawford. Accident. Deaths. CHAP. IX. 121 March to Estremadura. A Deserter shot. Riding for an Appetite. Effectthe Cure of a Sick Lady. Siege of Badajos. Trench-Work. Varietiesduring the Siege. Taste of the Times. Storming of the Town. Its Fall. Officers of a French Battalion. Not shot by Accident. MilitaryShopkeepers. Lost Legs and cold Hearts. Affecting Anecdote. MyServant. A Consignment to Satan. March again for the North. Sir SidneyBeckwith. CHAP. X. 143 A Farewell Address to Portalegré. History of a Night in CastelloBranco. Regimental Colours lost, with Directions where to find them. Cases in which a Victory is sometimes won by those who lost it. Advance to Salamanca. The City. The British Position on St. Christoval. Affair in Position. Marmont's Change of Position andRetreat. A Case of Bad Luck. Advance to Rueda, and Customs there. Retire to Castrejon. Affairs on the 18th and 19th of July. Battle ofSalamanca, and Defeat of the Enemy. CHAP. XI. 165 Distinguished Characters. A Charge of Dragoons. A Charge against theNature of Things. Olmeda and the French General, Ferez. Advancetowards Madrid. Adventures of my Dinner. The Town of Segovia. ElPalacio del Rio Frio. The Escurial. Enter Madrid. Rejoicings. Nearlyhappy. Change of a Horse. Change of Quarters. A Change confounded. Retire towards Salamanca. Boar-Hunt, Dinner-Hunt, and Bull-Hunt. APortuguese Funeral conducted by Rifle Undertakers. CHAP. XII. 183 Reach Salamanca. Retreat from it. Pig Hunting, an Enemy toSleep-Hunting. Putting one's Foot in it. Affair on the 17th ofNovember. Bad Legs sometimes last longer than good ones. A Wet Birth. Prospectus of a Day's Work. A lost _déjûné_ better than a found one. Advantages not taken. A disagreeable Amusement, End of the Campaign of1812. Winter Quarters. Orders and Disorders treated. Farewell Opinionof Ancient Allies. My House. CHAP. XIII. 200 A Review. Assembly of the Army. March to Salamanca. To Aldea Nueva. ToToro. An Affair of the Hussar Brigade. To Palencia. To theNeighbourhood of Burgos. To the Banks of the Ebro. Fruitful sleepingplace. To Medina. A Dance before it was due. Smell the Foe. Affair atSt. Milan. A Physical River. CHAP. XIV. 213 Battle of Vittoria. Defeat of the Enemy. Confusion among theirFollowers. Plunder. Colonel Cameron. Pursuit, and the Capture of theirLast Gun. Arrive near Pampeluna. At Villalba. An Irish method ofmaking a useless Bed useful. CHAP. XV. 231 March to intercept Clausel. Tafalla. Olite. The dark End of a NightMarch to Casada. Clausel's Escape. Sanguessa. My Tent struck. Returnto Villalba. Weighty Considerations on Females. St. Esteban. A SevereDance. Position at Bera. Soult's Advance, and Battle of the Pyrenees. His Defeat and subsequent Actions. A Morning's Ride. CHAP. XVI. 246 An Anniversary Dinner. Affair with the Enemy, and Fall of St. Sebastian. A Building Speculation. A Fighting one, storming theHeights of Bera. A Picture of France from the Pyrenees. Returns afteran Action. Sold by my Pay-Serjeant. A Recruit born at his Post. Between Two Fires, a Sea and a Land one. Position of La Rhune. MyPicture taken in a Storm. Refreshing Invention for wintry Weather. CHAP. XVII. 263 Battle of the Nivelle, and Defeat of the Enemy. A Bird of Evil Omen. Chateau D'Arcangues. Prudence. An Enemy's Gratitude. Passage of theNive, and Battles near Bayonne, from 9th to 13th December. CHAP. XVIII. 280 Change of Quarters. Change of Diet. Suttlers. Our new Quarter. Along-going Horse gone. New Clothing. Adam's lineal Descendants. St. Palais. Action at Tarbes. Faubourg of Toulouse. The green Man. Passageof the Garonne. Battle of Toulouse. Peace. Castle Sarrazin. A TenderPoint. CHAP. XIX. 301 Commencement of the War of 1815. Embark for Rotterdam. Ship's Stock. Ship struck. A Pilot, a Smuggler, and a Lawyer. A Boat without Stock. Join the Regiment at Brussels. CHAP. XX. 307 Relative Situation of the Troops. March from Brussels. The Prince andthe Beggar. Battle of Quatre-Bras. CHAP. XXI. 327 Battle of Waterloo, 18th June, 1815. "A Horse! a Horse!" Breakfast. Position. Disposition. Meeting of _particular_ Friends. Dish of Powderand Ball. Fricassee of Swords. End of First Course. Pounding. Brewing. Peppering. Cutting and Maiming. Fury. Tantalizing. Charging. Cheering. Chasing. Opinionizing. Anecdotes. The End. ADVENTURES IN THE RIFLE BRIGADE. CHAPTER I. Joined the Rifles. Walcheren Expedition. A young Soldier. A Marine View. Campaign in South Beeveland. Retreat to Scotland. I joined the second battalion rifle brigade, (then the ninety-fifth, )at Hythe-Barracks, in the spring of 1809, and, in a month after, weproceeded to form a part of the expedition to Holland, under the Earlof Chatham. With the usual Quixotic feelings of a youngster, I remember how verydesirous I was, on the march to Deal, to impress the minds of thenatives with a suitable notion of the magnitude of my importance, bycarrying a donkey-load of pistols in my belt, and screwing mynaturally placid countenance up to a pitch of ferocity beyond what itwas calculated to bear. We embarked in the Downs, on board the Hussar frigate, and afterwardsremoved to the Namur, a seventy-four, in which we were conveyed to ourdestination. I had never before been in a ship of war, and it appeared to me, thefirst night, as if the sailors and marines did not pull well together, excepting by the ears; for my hammock was slung over the descent intothe cockpit, and I had scarcely turned-in when an officer of marinescame and abused his sentry for not seeing the lights out below, according to orders. The sentry proceeded to explain, that the_middies_ would not put them out for him, when the naked shoulders andthe head of one of them, illuminated with a red nightcap, made itsappearance above the hatchway, and began to take a lively share inthe argument. The marine officer, looking down, with someastonishment, demanded, "d--n you, sir, who are you?" to which thehead and shoulders immediately rejoined, "and d--n and b--t you, sir, who are you?" We landed on the island of South Beeveland, where we remained aboutthree weeks, playing at soldiers, smoking _mynheer's_ long clay pipes, and drinking his _vrow's_ butter-milk, for which I paid liberally withmy precious blood to their infernal musquitos; not to mention that Ihad all the extra valour shaken out of me by a horrible ague, whichcommenced a campaign on my carcass, and compelled me to retire uponScotland, for the aid of my native air, by virtue of which it wasultimately routed. I shall not carry my first chapter beyond my first campaign, as I amanxious that my reader should not expend more than his first breathupon an event which cost too many their last. CHAP. II. Rejoin the Regiment. Embark for the Peninsula. Arrival in the Tagus. The City of Lisbon, with its Contents. Sail for Figuera. Landing extraordinary. Billet ditto. The City of Coimbra. A hard Case. A cold Case, in which a favourite Scotch Dance is introduced. Climate. The Duke of Wellington. I rejoined the battalion, at Hythe, in the spring of 1810, and, finding that the company to which I belonged had embarked, to join thefirst battalion in the Peninsula, and that they were waiting atSpithead for a fair wind, I immediately applied, and obtainedpermission, to join them. We were about the usual time at sea, and indulged in the usualamusements, beginning with keeping journals, in which I succeeded ininserting two remarks on the state of the weather, when I found myinclination for book-making superseded by the more disagreeable studyof appearing eminently happy under an irresistible inclination towardssea-sickness. We anchored in the Tagus in September;--no thanks to theship, for she was a leaky one, and wishing foul winds to the skipper, for he was a bad one. To look at Lisbon from the Tagus, there are few cities in the universethat can promise so much, and none, I hope, that can keep it so badly. I only got on shore one day, for a few hours, and, as I never againhad an opportunity of correcting the impression, I have no objectionto its being considered an uncharitable one; but I wandered for a timeamid the abominations of its streets and squares, in the vain hopethat I had got involved among a congregation of stables and outhouses;but when I was, at length, compelled to admit it as the miserableapology for the fair city that I had seen from the harbour, I began tocontemplate, with astonishment, and no little amusement, the veryappropriate appearance of its inhabitants. The church, I concluded, had, on that occasion, indulged her numerousoffspring with a holiday, for they occupied a much larger portion ofthe streets than all the world besides. Some of them were languidlystrolling about, and looking the sworn foes of time, while otherscrowded the doors of the different coffee-houses; the fatjolly-looking friars cooling themselves with lemonade, and the leanmustard-pot-faced ones sipping coffee out of thimble-sized cups, withas much caution as if it had been physic. The next class that attracted my attention was the numerous collectionof well-starved dogs, who were indulging in all the luxury of extremepoverty on the endless dung-heaps. There, too, sat the industrious citizen, basking in the sunshine ofhis shop-door, and gathering in the flock which is so bountifullyreared on his withered tribe of children. There strutted the sprucecavalier, with his upper-man furnished at the expense of his lower, and looking ridiculously imposing: and there--but sacred be theirdaughters, for the sake of _one_, who shed a lustre over her squalidsisterhood, sufficiently brilliant to redeem their whole nation fromthe odious sin of ugliness. I was looking for an official person, living somewhere near the Convent D'Estrella, and was endeavouring toexpress my wishes to a boy, when I heard a female voice, in brokenEnglish, from a balcony above, giving the information I desired. Ilooked up, and saw a young girl, dressed in white, who was lovelinessitself! In the few words which passed between us, of livelyunconstrained civility on her part, and pure confounded gratitude onmine, she seemed so perfectly after my own heart, that she lit a torchin it which burnt for two years and a half. It must not detract from her merits that she was almost the only onethat I saw during that period in which it was my fate to tread war'sroughest, rudest path, --daily staring his grim majesty out ofcountenance, and nightly slumbering on the cold earth, or in thetenantless mansion, for I felt as if she would have been the chosencompanion of my waking dreams in _rosier_ walks, as I never recalledthe fair vision to my aid, even in the worst of times, that it did notact upon my drooping spirits like a glass of brandy. It pleased the great disposer of naval events to remove us to anotherand a better ship, and to send us off for Figuera, next day, with afoul wind. Sailing at the rate of one mile in two hours, we reached Figuera's Bayat the end of eight days, and were welcomed by about a hundred hideouslooking Portuguese women, whose joy was so excessive that they wadedup to their arm-pits through a heavy surf, and insisted on carrying uson shore on their backs! I never clearly ascertained whether they hadbeen actuated by the purity of love or gold. Our men were lodged for the night in a large barn, and the officersbilletted in town. Mine chanced to be on the house of a mad-woman, whose extraordinary appearance I never shall forget. Her petticoatsscarcely reached to the knee, and all above the lower part of thebosom was bare; and though she looked not more than middle aged, herskin seemed as if it had been regularly prepared to receive theimpression of her last will and testament; her head was defended by achevaux-de-frise of black wiry hair, which pointed fiercely in everydirection, while her eyes looked like two burnt holes in a blanket. Ihad no sooner opened the door than she stuck her arms a-kimbo, and, opening a mouth, which stretched from ear to ear, she beganvociferating "_bravo, bravissimo_!" Being a stranger alike to the appearance and the manners of thenatives, I thought it possible that the former might have been nothingout of the common run, and concluding that she was overjoyed at seeingher country reinforced, at that perilous moment, by a fellow upwardsof six feet high, and thinking it necessary to sympathize in somedegree in her patriotic feelings, I began to "_bravo_" too; but as hersecond shout ascended ten degrees, and kept increasing in that ratio, until it amounted to absolute frenzy, I faced to the right-about, and, before our _tête-à-tête_ had lasted the brief space of three-quartersof a minute, I disappeared with all possible haste, her terrific yellsvibrating in my astonished ears long after I had turned the corner ofthe street; nor did I feel perfectly at ease until I found myselfstretched on a bundle of straw in a corner of the barn occupied by themen. We proceeded, next morning, to join the army; and, as our route laythrough the city of Coimbra, we came to the magnanimous resolution ofproviding ourselves with all manner of comforts and equipments for thecampaign on our arrival there; but, when we entered it, at the end ofthe second day, our disappointment was quite eclipsed by astonishmentat finding ourselves the only living things in a city, which ought tohave been furnished with twenty thousand souls. Lord Wellington was then in the course of his retreat from thefrontiers of Spain to the lines of Torres Vedras, and had compelledthe inhabitants on the line of march to abandon their homes, and todestroy or carry away every thing that could be of service to theenemy. It was a measure that ultimately saved their country, thoughruinous and distressing to those concerned, and on no class ofindividuals did it bear harder, for the moment, than our own littledetachment, a company of rosy-cheeked, chubbed youths, who, afterthree months feeding on ship's dumplings, were thus thrust, at amoment of extreme activity, in the face of an advancing foe, supportedby a pound of raw beef, drawn every day fresh from the bullock, and amouldy biscuit. The difficulties we encountered were nothing out of the usual courseof old campaigners; but, untrained and unprovided as I was, I stilllooked back upon the twelve or fourteen days following the battle ofBusaco as the most trying I have ever experienced, for we were on ourlegs from daylight until dark, in daily contact with the enemy; and, to satisfy the stomach of an ostrich, I had, as already stated, only apound of beef, a pound of biscuit, and one glass of rum. Abrother-officer was kind enough to strap my boat-cloak and portmanteauon the mule carrying his heavy baggage, which, on account of theproximity of the foe, was never permitted to be within a day's marchof us, so that, in addition to my simple uniform, my only coveringevery night was the canopy of heaven, from whence the dews descendedso refreshingly, that I generally awoke, at the end of an hour, chilled, and wet to the skin; and I could only purchase an equallength of additional repose by jumping up and running about, until Iacquired a sleeping quantity of warmth. Nothing in life can be moreridiculous than seeing a lean, lank fellow start from a profoundsleep, at midnight, and begin lashing away at the highland fling, asif St. Andrew himself had been playing the bagpipes; but it was ameasure that I very often had recourse to, as the cleverest method ofproducing heat. In short, though the prudent general may preach thepropriety of light baggage in the enemy's presence, I will evermaintain that there is marvellous small personal comfort in travellingso fast and so lightly as I did. The Portuguese farmers will tell you that the beauty of their climateconsists in their crops receiving from the nightly dews the refreshinginfluence of a summer's shower, and that they ripen in the daily sun. But _they_ are a sordid set of rascals! Whereas _I_ speak with theenlightened views of a man of war, and say, that it is poorconsolation to me, after having been deprived of my needful repose, and kept all night in a fever, dancing wet and cold, to be told that Ishall be warm enough in the morning? it is like frying a person afterhe has been boiled; and I insisted upon it, that if their sun had beenmilder and their dews lighter that I should have found it much morepleasant. THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. From the moment that I joined the army, so intense was my desire toget a look at this illustrious chief, that I never should haveforgiven the Frenchman that had killed me before I effected it. Mycuriosity did not remain long ungratified; for, as our post was nextthe enemy, I found, when anything was to be done, that it was hisalso. He was just such a man as I had figured in my mind's eye, and Ithought that the stranger would betray a grievous want of penetrationwho could not select the Duke of Wellington from amid five hundred inthe same uniform. CHAP. III. Other People, Myself, and my Regiment. Retreat to the Lines of Torres Vedras. Leave Coimbra, followed by a select group of Natives. Ford the Streets of Condacia in good spirit. A Provost-Marshal and his favourites. A fall. Convent of Batalha. Turned out of Allenquer. Passed through Sobral. Turned into Arruda. Quartering of the Light Division, and their Quarters at Arruda. Burial of an only Child. Lines of Torres Vedras. Difference of opinion between Massena and Myself. Military Customs. Having now brought myself regularly into the field, under the renownedWellington, should this narrative, by any accident, fall into thehands of others who served there, and who may be unreasonable enoughto expect their names to be mentioned in it, let me tell them thatthey are most confoundedly mistaken! Every man may write a book forhimself, if he likes, but _this_ is mine; and, as I borrow no man'sstory, neither will I give any man a particle of credit for his deeds, as I have got so little for my own that I have none to spare. Neitherwill I mention any regiment but my own, if I can possibly avoid it, for there is none other that I like so much, and none else so muchdeserves it; for we were the light regiment of the Light Division, andfired the first and last shot in almost every battle, siege, andskirmish, in which the army was engaged during the war. In stating the foregoing resolution, however, with regard toregiments, I beg to be understood as identifying our old and gallantassociates, the forty-third and fifty-second, as a part of ourselves, for they bore their share in every thing, and I love them as I hope todo my better half, (when I come to be divided, ) wherever _we_ were, _they_ were; and although the nature of our arm generally gave us moreemployment in the way of skirmishing, yet, whenever it came to apinch, independent of a suitable mixture of them among us, we hadonly to look behind to see a line, in which we might place a degree ofconfidence, almost equal to our hopes in heaven; nor were we everdisappointed. There never was a corps of riflemen in the hands of suchsupporters! October 1st, 1810. --We stood to our arms at day light this morning, ona hill in front of Coimbra; and, as the enemy soon after came on inforce, we retired before them through the city. The civil authorities, in making their own hurried escape, had totally forgotten that theyhad left a gaol full of rogues unprovided for, and who, as we werepassing near them, made the most hideous screaming for relief. Ourquarter-master-general very humanely took some men, who broke open thedoors, and the whole of them were soon seen howling along the bridgeinto the wide world, in the most delightful delirium, with the Frenchdragoons at their heels. We retired, the same night, through Condacia, where the commissariatwere destroying quantities of stores that they were unable to carryoff. They handed out shoes and shirts to any one that would take them, and the streets were literally running ankle deep with rum, in whichthe soldiers were dipping their cups and helping themselves as theymarched along. The commissariat, some years afterwards, called for areturn of the men who had received shirts and shoes on this occasion, with a view of making us pay for them, but we very briefly repliedthat the one half were dead, and the other half would be d----d beforethey would pay any thing. We retired this day to Leria, and, at the entrance of the city, saw anEnglish and a Portuguese soldier dangling by the bough of a tree--thefirst summary example I had ever seen of martial law. A provost-marshal, on actual service, is a character of considerablepretensions, as he can flog at pleasure, always moves about with aguard of honour, and though he cannot altogether stop a man's breathwithout an order, yet, when he is ordered to hang a given number outof a crowd of plunderers, his _friends_ are not particularlydesignated, so that he can invite any one that he takes a fancy to, tofollow him to the nearest tree, where he, without further ceremony, relieves him from the cares and troubles of this wicked world. There was only one _furnished_ shop remaining in the town at thistime, and I went in to see what they had got to sell; but I hadscarcely past the threshold when I heard a tremendous clatter at myheels, as if the opposite house had been pitched in at the door afterme; and, on wheeling round to ascertain the cause, I found, when thedust cleared away, that a huge stone balcony, with iron railings, which had been over the door, overcharged with a collection of oldwives looking at the troops, had tumbled down; and in spite of theirvociferations for the aid of their patron saints, some them wereconsiderably damaged. We halted one night near the Convent of Batalha, one of the finestbuildings in Portugal. It has, I believe, been clearly established, that a living man in ever so bad health is better than two dead ones;but it appears that the latter will vary in value according tocircumstances, for we found here, in very high preservation, the bodyof King John of Portugal, who founded the edifice in commemoration ofsome victory, God knows how long ago; and though he would have beenreckoned a highly valuable antique, within a glass case, in anapothecary's hall in England, yet he was held so cheap in his ownhouse, that the very finger which most probably pointed the way to thevictory alluded to, is now in the baggage of the Rifle Brigade!Reader, point not _thy_ finger at me, for I am not the man. Retired on the morning of a very wet, stormy day to Allenquer, a smalltown on the top of a mountain, surrounded by still higher ones; and, as the enemy had not shewn themselves the evening before, we tookpossession of the houses, with a tolerable prospect of being permittedthe unusual treat of eating a dinner under cover. But by the timethat the pound of beef was parboiled, and while an officer of dragoonswas in the act of reporting that he had just patrolled six leagues tothe front, without seeing any signs of an enemy, we saw theindefatigable rascals, on the mountain opposite our windows, justbeginning to wind round us, with a mixture of cavalry and infantry;the wind blowing so strong, that the long tail of each particularhorse stuck as stiffly out in the face of the one behind, as if thewhole had been strung upon a cable and dragged by the leaders. Weturned out a few companies, and kept them in check while the divisionwas getting under arms, spilt the soup as usual, and transferring thesmoking solids to the haversack, for future mastication, we continuedour retreat. We past through the town of Sobral, soon after dark, the same night;and, by the aid of some rushlights in a window, saw two apothecaries, the very counterparts of Romeo's, who were the only remnants of theplace, and had braved the horrors of war for the sake of thegallipots, and in the hopes that their profession would be heldsacred. They were both on the same side of the counter, looking eachother point blank in the face, their sharp noses not three inchesapart, and neither daring to utter a syllable, but both listeningintensely to the noise outside. Whatever their courage might have beenscrewed up to before, it was evident that we were indebted for theirpresence now to their fears; and their appearance altogether was soludicrous, that they excited universal shouts of laughter as they camewithin view of the successive divisions. Our long retreat ended at midnight, on our arrival at the handsomelittle town of Arruda, which was destined to be the piquet post of ourdivision, in front of the fortified lines. The quartering of ourdivision, whether by night or by day, was an affair of about fiveminutes. The quarter-master-general preceded the troops, accompaniedby the brigade-majors and the quarter-masters of regiments; and aftermarking off certain houses for his general and staff, he split theremainder of the town between the majors of brigades: they in theirturn provided for their generals and staff, and then made a wholesaledivision of streets among the quarter-masters of regiments, who, afterproviding for their commanding officers and staff, retailed theremaining houses, in equal proportions, among the companies; so that, by the time that the regiment arrived, there was nothing to be donebeyond the quarter-master's simply telling each captain, "here's acertain number of houses for you. " Like all other places on the line of march, we found Arruda totallydeserted, and its inhabitants had fled in such a hurry, that the keysof their house doors were the only things they carried away; so thatwhen we got admission, through our usual key, [1] we were not a littlegratified to find that the houses were not only regularly furnished, but most of them had some food in the larder, and a plentiful supplyof good wines in the cellar; and, in short, that they only required afew lodgers capable of appreciating the good things which the gods hadprovided; and the deuce is in it if we were not the very folks whocould! [Footnote 1: Transmitting a rifle-ball through the key-hole: it opens every lock. ] Unfortunately for ourselves, and still more so for the proprietors, wenever dreamt of the possibility of our being able to keep possessionof the town, as we thought it a matter of course that the enemy wouldattack our lines; and, as this was only an outpost, that it must fallinto their hands; so that, in conformity with the system upon which wehad all along been retreating, we destroyed every thing that we couldnot use ourselves, to prevent their benefiting by it. But, when wecontinued to hold the post beyond the expected period, ourindiscretion was visited on our own heads, as we had destroyed in aday what would have made us luxurious for months. We were in hopesthat, afterwards, the enemy would have forced the post, if only for anhour, that we might have saddled them with the mischief; but, as theynever even made the attempt, it left it in the power of ill-naturedpeople to say, that we had plundered one of our own towns. This wasthe only instance during the war in which the light division hadreason to blush for their conduct, and even in that we had the lawmartial on our side, whatever gospel law might have said against it. The day after our arrival, Mr. Simmons and myself had the curiosity tolook into the church, which was in nowise injured, and was fitted upin a style of magnificence becoming such a town. The body of a poorold woman was there, lying dead before the altar. It seemed as if shehad been too infirm to join in the general flight, and had justdragged herself to that spot by a last effort of nature, and expired. We immediately determined, that as her's was the only body that we hadfound in the town, either alive or dead, that she should have moreglory in the grave than she appeared to have enjoyed on this side ofit; and, with our united exertions, we succeeded in raising a marbleslab, which surmounted a monumental vault, and was beautifullyembellished with armorial blazonry, and, depositing the body inside, we replaced it again carefully. If the personage to whom it belongedhappened to have a tenant of his own for it soon afterwards, he musthave been rather astonished at the manner in which the apartment wasoccupied. Those who wish a description of the lines of Torres Vedras, must read_Napier_, or some one else who knows all about them; for my part, Iknow nothing, excepting that I was told that one end of them rested onthe Tagus, and the other somewhere on the sea; and I saw, with my owneyes, a variety of redoubts and field-works on the various hills whichstand between. This, however, I do know, that we have since kicked theFrench out of more formidable looking and stronger places; and, withall due deference be it spoken, I think that the Prince of Esslingought to have tried his luck against them, as he could only have beenbeaten by fighting, as he afterwards was without it! And if he thinksthat he would have lost as many men by trying, as he did by nottrying, he must allow me to differ in opinion with him!!! In very warm or very wet weather it was customary to put us undercover in the town during the day, but we were always moved back to ourbivouac, on the heights, during the night; and it was rather amusingto observe the different notions of individual comfort, in theselection of furniture, which officers transferred from their _townhouse_ to their _no house_ on the heights. A sofa, or a mattress, onewould have thought most likely to be put in requisition; but it wasnot unusual to see a full-length looking-glass preferred to either. The post of the company to which I belonged, on the heights, was neara redoubt, immediately behind Arruda; there was a cattle-shed near it, which we cleaned out, and used as a sort of quarter. On turning outfrom breakfast one morning, we found that the butcher had been aboutto offer up the usual sacrifice of a bullock to the wants of the day;but it had broken loose, and, in trying to regain his victim, hadcaught it by the tail, which he twisted round his hand; and, when wemade our appearance, they were performing a variety of evolutions at agallop, to the great amusement of the soldiers; until an unlucky turnbrought them down upon our house, which had been excavated out of theface of the hill, on which the upper part of the roof rested, and _in_they went, heels over head, butcher, bullock, tail and all, bearingdown the whole fabric with a tremendous crash. N. B. It was very fortunate that we happened to be outside; and veryunfortunate, as we were now obliged to remain out. We certainly lived in _clover_ while we remained here; every thing wesaw was our own, seeing no one there who had a more legitimate claim;and every field was a vineyard. Ultimately it was considered too muchtrouble to pluck the grapes, as there were a number of poor nativethieves in the habit of coming from the rear, every day, to stealsome, so that a soldier had nothing to do but to watch one until hewas marching off with his basket full, when he would very deliberatelyplace his back against that of the Portuguese, and relieve him of hisload, without wasting any words about the bargain. The poor wretchwould follow the soldier to the camp, in the hope of having his basketreturned, as it generally was, when emptied. Massena conceiving any attack upon our lines to be hopeless, as histroops were rapidly mouldering away with sickness and want, at lengthbegan to withdraw them nearer to the source of his supplies. He abandoned his position, opposite to us, on the night of the 9th ofNovember, leaving some stuffed-straw gentlemen occupying their usualposts. Some of them were cavalry, some infantry, and they seemed suchrespectable representatives of their spectral predecessors, that, inthe haze of the following morning, we thought that they had beenjoined by some well-fed ones from the rear; and it was late in the daybefore we discovered the mistake and advanced in pursuit. In passingby the edge of a mill-pond, after dark, our adjutant and his horsetumbled in, and, as the latter had no tail to hold on by, they wereboth very nearly drowned. It was late ere we halted for the night, on the side of the road, nearto Allenquer, and I got under cover in a small house, which looked asif it had been honoured as the head-quarters of the tailor-general ofthe French army, for the floor was strewed with variegated threads, various complexioned buttons, with particles and remnants of_cabbage_; and, if it could not boast of the flesh and fowl of Noah'sark, there was an abundance of the creeping things which it were to bewished that that commander had not left behind. We marched beforedaylight next morning, leaving a _rousing_ fire in the chimney, whichshortly became too small to hold it; for we had not proceeded farbefore we perceived that the well-dried thatched roof had joined inthe general blaze, a circumstance which caused us no littleuneasiness, for our general, the late Major-general Robert Crawford, had brought us up in the fear of our master; and, as he was a sort ofperson who would not see a fire, of that kind, in the same _light_that we did, I was by no means satisfied that my commission lay snugin my pocket, until we had fairly marched it out of sight, and inwhich we were aided not a little by a slight fire of another kind, which he was required to watch with the advanced guard. On our arrival at Vallé, on the 12th of Nov. We found the enemy behindthe Rio Maior, occupying the heights of Santarem, and exchanged someshots with their advanced posts. In the course of the night weexperienced one of those tremendous thunderstorms which used toprecede the Wellington victories, and which induced us to expect ageneral action on the following day. I had disposed myself to sleep ina beautiful green hollow way, and, before I had time even to dream ofthe effects of their heavy rains, I found myself floating mostmajestically towards the river, in a fair way of becoming food forthe fishes. I ever after gave those inviting-looking spots a widebirth, as I found that they were regular watercourses. Next morning our division crossed the river, and commenced a falseattack on the enemy's left, with a view of making them show theirforce; and it was to have been turned into a real attack, if theirposition was found to be occupied by a rear guard only; but, afterkeeping up a smart skirmishing-fire the greater part of the day, LordWellington was satisfied that their whole army was present, we wereconsequently withdrawn. This affair terminated the campaign of 1810. Our division tookpossession of the village of Vallé and its adjacents, and the rest ofthe army was placed in cantonments, under whatever cover theneighbouring country afforded. Our battalion was stationed in some empty farm-houses, near the end ofthe bridge of Santarem, which was nearly half a mile long; and oursentries and those of the enemy were within pistol-shot of each otheron the bridge. I do not mean to insinuate that a country is never so much at peace aswhen at open war; but I do say that a soldier can no where sleep sosoundly, nor is he any where so secure from surprise, as when withinmusket-shot of his enemy. We lay four months in this situation, divided only by a rivulet, without once exchanging shots. Every evening, at the hour "When bucks to dinner go, And cits to sup, " it was our practice to dress for sleep: we saddled our horses, buckledon our armour, and lay down, with the bare floor for a bed and a stonefor a pillow, ready for any thing, and reckless of every thing but thehonour of our corps and country; for I will say (to save the expenseof a trumpeter) that a more devoted set of fellows were neverassociated. We stood to our arms every morning at an hour before daybreak, andremained there until a _grey horse_ could be seen a mile off, (whichis the military criterion by which daylight is acknowledged, and thehour of surprise past, ) when we proceeded to unharness, and to indulgein such _luxuries_ as our toilet and our table afforded. The Maior, as far as the bridge of Vallé, was navigable for the smallcraft from Lisbon, so that our table, while we remained there, cut asrespectable a figure, as regular supplies of rice, salt fish, andpotatoes could make it; not to mention that our pig-skin was, at alltimes, at least three parts full of a common red wine, which used tobe dignified by the name of _black-strap_. We had the utmostdifficulty, however, in keeping up appearances in the way of dress. The jacket, in spite of shreds and patches, always maintainedsomething of the original about it; but woe befel the regimentalsmall-clothes, and they could only be replaced by very extraordinaryapologies, of which I remember that I had two pair at this period, _one_ of a common brown Portuguese cloth, and the _other_, orSunday's pair, of black velvet. We had no women with the regiment; andthe ceremony of washing a shirt amounted to my servant's taking it bythe collar, and giving it a couple of shakes in the water, and thenhanging it up to dry. Smoothing-irons were not the fashion of thetimes, and, if a fresh well-dressed aide-de-camp did occasionally comefrom England, we used to stare at him with about as much respect asHotspur did at his "waiting gentlewoman. " The winter here was uncommonly mild. I am not the sort of person toput myself much in the way of ice, except on a warm summer's day; butthe only inconvenience that I felt in bathing, in the middle ofDecember, was the quantity of leeches that used to attach themselvesto my personal supporters, obliging me to cut a few capers to shakethem off, after leaving the water. Our piquet-post, at the bridge, became a regular lounge, for thewinter, to all manner of folks. I used to be much amused at seeing our naval officers come up fromLisbon riding on mules, with huge ships' spy-glasses, likesix-pounders, strapped across the backs of their saddles. Their firstquestion invariably was, "Who is that fellow there, " (pointing to theenemy's sentry, close to us, ) and, on being told that he was aFrenchman, "Then why the devil don't you shoot him!" Repeated acts of civility passed between the French and us during thistacit suspension of hostilities. The greyhounds of an officer followeda hare, on one occasion, into their lines, and they very politelyreturned them. I was one night on piquet, at the end of the bridge, when a ball camefrom the French sentry and struck the burning billet of wood roundwhich we were sitting, and they sent in a flag of truce, next morning, to apologize for the accident, and to say that it had been done by astupid fellow of a sentry, who imagined that people were advancingupon him. We admitted the apology, though we knew well enough that ithad been done by a malicious rather than a stupid fellow, from thesituation we occupied. General Junot, one day reconnoitring, was severely wounded by asentry, and Lord Wellington, knowing that they were at that timedestitute of every thing in the shape of comfort, sent to request hisacceptance of any thing that Lisbon afforded that could be of anyservice to him; but the French general was too much of a politician toadmit the want of any thing. CHAP. V. Campaign of 1811 opens. Massena's Retreat. Wretched Condition of the Inhabitants on the Line of March. Affairs with the Enemy, near Pombal. Description of a Bivouac. Action near Redinha. Destruction of Condacia and Action near it. Burning of the Village of Illama, and Misery of its Inhabitants. Action at Foz D'Aronce. Confidential Servants with Donkey-Assistants. The campaign of 1811 commenced on the 6th of March, by the retreat ofthe enemy from Santarem. Lord Wellington seemed to be perfectly acquainted with theirintentions, for he sent to apprize our piquets, the evening before, that they were going off, and to desire that they should feel for themoccasionally during the night, and give the earliest information oftheir having started. It was not, however, until daylight that wewere quite certain of their having gone, and our division wasinstantly put in motion after them, passing through the town ofSantarem, around which their camp fires were still burning. Santarem is finely situated, and probably had been a handsome town. Ihad never seen it in prosperity, and it now looked like a city of theplague, represented by empty dogs and empty houses; and, but for thetolling of a convent-bell by some unseen hand, its appearance wasaltogether inhuman. We halted for the night near Pyrnes. This little town, and the fewwretched inhabitants who had been induced to remain in it under thefaithless promises of the French generals, shewed fearful signs of alate visit from a barbarous and merciless foe. Young women were lyingin their houses brutally violated, --the streets were strewed withbroken furniture, intermixed with the putrid carcasses of murderedpeasants, mules, and donkeys, and every description of filth, thatfilled the air with pestilential nausea. The few starved maleinhabitants who were stalking amid the wreck of their friends andproperty, looked like so many skeletons who had been permitted toleave their graves for the purpose of taking vengeance on theiroppressors, and the mangled body of every Frenchman who wasunfortunate or imprudent enough to stray from his column, shewed howreligiously they performed their mission. March 8th. --We overtook their rear guard this evening, snugly put upfor the night in a little village, the name of which I do notrecollect, but a couple of six pounders, supported by a few of ourrifles, induced them to extend their walk. March 9th. --While moving along the road this morning, we found a man, who had deserted from us a short time before, in the uniform of aFrench dragoon, with his head laid open by one of our bullets. He wasstill alive, exciting any thing but sympathy among his formerassociates. Towards the afternoon we found the enemy in force, on theplain in front of Pombal, where we exchanged some shots. March 11th. --They retired yesterday to the heights behind Pombal, withtheir advanced posts occupying the town and moorish castle, which ourbattalion, assisted by some Cácadores, attacked this morning, anddrove them from with considerable loss. Dispositions were then madefor a general attack on their position, but the other divisions of ourarmy did not arrive until too late in the evening. We bivouacked forthe night in a ploughed field, under the castle, with our sentrieswithin pistol shot, while it rained in torrents. As it is possible that some of my readers might never have had themisfortune to experience the comforts of a bivouac, and as the onewhich I am now in, contains but a small quantity of sleep, I shalldevote a waking hour for their edification. When a regiment arrives at its ground for the night, it is formed incolumns of companies, at full, half, or quarter distance, accordingto the space which circumstances will permit it to occupy. The officercommanding each company then receives his orders; and, aftercommunicating whatever may be necessary to the men, he desires them to"pile arms, and make themselves comfortable for the night. " Now, Ipray thee, most sanguine reader, suffer not thy fervid imagination totransport thee into elysian fields at the pleasing exhortationconveyed in the concluding part of the captain's address, but restthee contentedly in the one where it is made, which in all probabilityis a ploughed one, and that, too, in a state of preparation to take amodel of thy very beautiful person, under the melting influence of ashower of rain. The soldiers of each company have a hereditary claimto the ground next to their arms, as have their officers to a widerrange on the same line, limited to the end of a bugle sound, if not bya neighbouring corps, or one that is not neighbourly, for the nearer aman is to his enemy, the nearer he likes to be to his friends. Sufficeit, that each individual knows his place as well as if he had beenborn on the estate, and takes immediate possession accordingly. In aploughed or a stubble field there is scarcely a choice of quarters;but, whenever there is a sprinkling of trees, it is always an objectto secure a good one, as it affords shelter from the sun by day andthe dews by night, besides being a sort of home or sign post for agroup of officers, as denoting the best place of entertainment; forthey hang their spare clothing and accoutrements among the branches, barricade themselves on each side with their saddles, canteens, andportmanteaus, and, with a blazing fire in their front, they indulge, according to their various humours, in a complete state ofgipsyfication. There are several degrees of comfort to be reckoned in a bivouac, twoof which will suffice. The first, and worst, is to arrive at the end of a cold wet day, toodark to see your ground, and too near the enemy to be permitted tounpack the knapsacks or to take off accoutrements; where, unincumbered with baggage or eatables of any kind, you have theconsolation of knowing that things are now at their worst, and thatany change must be for the better. You keep yourself alive for awhile, in collecting material to feed your fire with. You take a smellat your empty calibash, which recalls to your remembrance thedelicious flavour of its last drop of wine. You curse your servant fornot having contrived to send you something or other from the baggage, (though you know that it was impossible). You then damn the enemy forbeing so near you, though probably, as in the present instance, it wasyou that came so near them. And, finally, you take a whiff at the endof a cigar, if you have one, and keep grumbling through the smoke, like distant thunder through a cloud, until you tumble into a mostwarlike sleep. The next, and most common one, is, when you are not required to lookquite so sharp, and when the light baggage and provisions come in atthe heel of the regiment. If it is early in the day, the first thingto be done is to make some tea, the most sovereign restorative forjaded spirits. We then proceed to our various duties. The officers ofeach company form a mess of themselves. One remains in camp to attendto the duties of the regiment; a second attends to the mess: he goesto the regimental butcher, and bespeaks a portion of the onlypurchaseable commodities, hearts, livers, and kidneys; and also to seewhether he cannot _do_ the commissary out of a few extra biscuit, or acanteen of brandy; and the remainder are gentlemen at large for theday. But while they go hunting among the neighbouring regiments fornews, and the neighbouring houses for curiosity, they have always aneye to their mess, and omit no opportunity of adding to the generalstock. Dinner hour, for fear of accidents, is always the hour when dinner canbe got ready; and the 14th section of the articles of war is alwaysmost rigidly attended to, by every good officer parading himself roundthe camp-kettle at the time fixed, with his haversack in his hand. Ahaversack on service is a sort of dumb waiter. The mess have a goodmany things in common, but the contents of the haversack areexclusively the property of its owner; and a well regulated one oughtnever to be without the following furniture, unless when theperishable part is consumed, in consequence of every other means ofsupply having failed, viz. A couple of biscuit, a sausage, a littletea and sugar, a knife, fork, and spoon, a tin cup, (which answers tothe names of _tea-cup_, _soup-plate_, _wine-glass_, and _tumbler_, ) apair of socks, a piece of soap, a tooth-brush, towel, and comb, andhalf a dozen cigars. After doing justice to the dinner, if we feel in a humour foradditional society, we transfer ourselves to some neighbouring mess, taking our cups, and whatever we mean to drink, along with us, for inthose times there is nothing to be expected from our friends beyondthe pleasure of their conversation: and, finally, we retire to rest. To avoid inconvenience by the tossing off of the bed-clothes, eachofficer has a blanket sewed up at the sides, like a sack, into whichhe scrambles, and, with a green sod or a smooth stone for a pillow, composes himself to sleep; and, under such a glorious reflectingcanopy as the heavens, it would be a subject of mortification to anastronomer to see the celerity with which he tumbles into it. Habitgives endurance, and fatigue is the best nightcap; no matter that theveteran's countenance is alternately stormed with torrents of rain, heavy dews, and hoar-frosts; no matter that his ears are assailed by amillion mouths of chattering locusts, and by some villanous donkey, who every half hour pitches a _bray_ note, which, as a congregation ofpresbyterians follow their clerk, is instantly taken up by every muleand donkey in the army, and sent echoing from regiment to regiment, over hill and valley, until it dies away in the distance; no matterthat the scorpion is lurking beneath his pillow, the snake winding hisslimy way by his side, and the lizard galloping over his face, wipinghis eyes with its long cold tail. All are unheeded, until the warning voice of the brazen instrumentsounds to arms. Strange it is, that the ear which is impervious towhat would disturb the rest of the world besides, should alone bealive to one, and that, too, a sound which is likely to sooth thesleep of the citizens, or at most, to set them dreaming of theirloves. But so it is: the first note of the melodious bugle places thesoldier on his legs, like lightning; when, muttering a few curses atthe unseasonableness of the hour, he plants himself on his alarm post, without knowing or caring about the cause. Such is a bivouac; and our sleep-breaker having just sounded, thereader will find what occurred, by reading on. March 12th. --We stood to our arms before daylight. Finding that theenemy had quitted the position in our front, we proceeded to followthem; and had not gone far before we heard the usual morning'ssalutation, of a couple of shots, between their rear and our advancedguard. On driving in their outposts, we found their whole army drawnout on the plain, near Redinha, and instantly quarrelled with them ona large scale. As every body has read Waverley and the Scottish Chiefs, and knowsthat one battle is just like another, inasmuch as they always concludeby one or both sides running away; and as it is nothing to me whatthis or t'other regiment did, nor do I care three buttons what this ort'other person thinks he did, I shall limit all my descriptions tosuch events as immediately concerned the important personage mostinterested in this history. Be it known then, that I was one of a crowd of skirmishers who wereenabling the French ones to carry the news of their own defeat througha thick wood, at an infantry canter, when I found myself all at oncewithin a few yards of one of their regiments in line, which openedsuch a fire, that had I not, rifleman like, taken instant advantage ofthe cover of a good fir tree, my name would have unquestionably beentransmitted to posterity by that night's gazette. And, howeveropposed it may be to the usual system of drill, I will maintain, fromthat day's experience, that the cleverest method of teaching a recruitto stand at attention, is to place him behind a tree and fire balls athim; as, had our late worthy disciplinarian, Sir David Dundas, himself, been looking on, I think that even _he_ must have admittedthat he never saw any one stand so fiercely upright as I did behindmine, while the balls were rapping into it as fast as if a fellow hadbeen hammering a nail on the opposite side, not to mention the numbersthat were whistling past, within the eighth of an inch of every partof my body, both before and behind, particularly in the vicinity of mynose, for which the upper part of the tree could barely affordprotection. This was a last and a desperate stand made by their rear-guard, fortheir own safety, immediately above the town, as their sole chance ofescape depended upon their being able to hold the post until the onlybridge across the river was clear of the other fugitives. But theycould not hold it long enough; for, while we were undergoing atemporary sort of purgatory in their front, our comrades went workinground their flanks, which quickly sent them flying, with usintermixed, at full cry, down the streets. Whether in love or war, I have always considered that the pursuer hasa decided advantage over the pursued. In the first, he may gain andcannot lose; but, in the latter, when one sees his enemy at full speedbefore him, one has such a peculiar conscious sort of feeling that heis on the right side, that I would not exchange places for anyconsideration. When we reached the bridge, the scene became exceedingly interesting, for it was choked up by the fugitives who were, as usual, impedingeach other's progress, and we did not find that the application of ourswords to those nearest to us tended at all towards lessening theirdisorder, for it induced about a hundred of them to rush into anadjoining house for shelter, but that was netting regularly out of thefrying-pan into the fire, for the house happened to be really inflames, and too hot to hold them, so that the same hundred werequickly seen unkennelling again, half-cooked, into the very jaws oftheir consumers. John Bull, however, is not a blood-thirsty person, so that those whocould not better themselves, had only to submit to a simple transferof personal property to ensure his protection. We, consequently, mademany prisoners at the bridge, and followed their army about a leaguebeyond it, keeping up a flying fight until dark. Just as Mr. Simmons and myself had crossed the river, and were talkingover the events of the day, not a yard asunder, there was a Portuguesesoldier in the act of passing between us, when a cannon-ball plungedinto his belly--his head doubled down to his feet, and he stood for amoment in that posture before he rolled over a lifeless lump. March 13th. --Arrived on the hill above Condacia in time to see thathandsome little town in flames. Every species of barbarity continuedto mark the enemy's retreating steps. They burnt every town orvillage through which they passed, and if we entered a church, which, by accident, had been spared, it was to see the murdered bodies of thepeasantry on the altar. While Lord Wellington, with his staff, was on a hill a little in frontof us, waiting the result of a flank-movement which he had directed, some of the enemy's sharpshooters stole, unperceived, very near to himand began firing, but, fortunately, without effect. We immediatelydetached a few of ours to meet them, but the others ran off on theirapproach. We lay by our arms until towards evening, when the enemy withdrew ashort distance behind Condacia, and we closed up to them. There was acontinued popping between the advanced posts all night. March 14th. --Finding, at daylight, that the enemy still continued tohold the strong ground before us, some divisions of the army were sentto turn their flanks, while ours attacked them in front. We drove them from one strong hold to another, over a large track ofvery difficult country, mountainous and rocky, and thickly intersectedwith stone walls, and were involved in one continued hard skirmishfrom daylight until dark. This was the most harassing day's fightingthat I ever experienced. Daylight left the two armies looking at each other, near the villageof Illama. The smoking roofs of the houses showed that the French hadjust quitted and, as usual, set fire to it, when the company to whichI belonged was ordered on piquet there for the night. After postingour sentries, my brother-officer and myself had the curiosity to lookinto a house, and were shocked to find in it a mother and her childdead, and the father, with three more, living, but so much reduced byfamine as to be unable to remove themselves from the flames. Wecarried them into the open air, and offered the old man our fewremaining crumbs of biscuit, but he told us that he was too far goneto benefit by them, and begged that we would give them to hischildren. We lost no time in examining such of the other houses aswere yet safe to enter, and rescued many more individuals from onehorrible death, probably to reserve them for another equally so, andmore lingering, as we had nothing to give them, and marched atdaylight the following morning. Our post that night was one of terrific grandeur. The hills behindwere in a blaze of light with the British camp-fires, as were those inour front with the French ones. Both hills were abrupt and lofty, notabove eight hundred yards asunder, and we were in the burning villagein the valley between. The roofs of houses every instant falling in, and the sparks and flames ascending to the clouds. The streets werestrewed with the dying and the dead, --some had been murdered and somekilled in action, which, together with the half-famished wretches whomwe had saved from burning, contributed in making it a scene which waswell-calculated to shake a stout heart, as was proved in the instanceof one of our sentries, a well known "devil-may-care" sort of fellow. I know not what appearances the burning rafters might have reflectedon the neighbouring trees at the time, but he had not been long on hispost before he came running into the piquet, and swore, by all thesaints in the calendar, that he saw six dead Frenchmen advancing uponhim with hatchets over their shoulders! We found by the buttons on the coats of some of the fallen foe, thatwe had this day been opposed to the French ninety-fifth regiment, (thesame number as we were then, ) and I cut off several of them, which Ipreserved as trophies. March 15th. --We overtook the enemy a little before dark thisafternoon. They were drawn up behind the Ceira, at Fez D'Aronce, withtheir rear-guard, under Marshal Ney, imprudently posted on our side ofthe river, a circumstance which Lord Wellington took immediateadvantage of; and, by a furious attack, dislodged them, in suchconfusion, that they blew up the bridge before half of their ownpeople had time to get over. Those who were thereby left behind, notchoosing to put themselves to the pain of being shot, took to theriver, which received them so hospitably that few of them ever quittedit. Their loss, on this occasion, must have been very great, and, weunderstood, at the time, that Ney had been sent to France, indisgrace, in consequence of it. About the middle of the action, I observed some inexperienced lighttroops rushing up a deep road-way to certain destruction, and ran towarn them out of it, but I only arrived in time to partake the rewardof their indiscretion, for I was instantly struck with a musket-ballabove the left ear, which deposited me, at full length, in the mud. I know not how long I lay insensible, but, on recovering, my first_feeling_ was for my head, to ascertain if any part of it was stillstanding, for it appeared to me as if nothing remained above themouth; but, after repeated applications of all my fingers and thumbsto the doubtful parts, I, at length, proved to myself, satisfactorily, that it had rather increased than diminished by the concussion; and, jumping on my legs, and hearing, by the whistling of the balls fromboth sides, that the rascals who had got me into the scrape had beendriven back and left me there, I snatched my cap, which had saved mylife, and which had been spun off my head to the distance of ten ortwelve yards, and joined them, a short distance in the rear, when oneof them, a soldier of the sixtieth, came and told me that an officerof ours had been killed, a short time before, pointing to the spotwhere I myself had fallen, and that he had tried to take his jacketoff, but that the advance of the enemy had prevented him. I told himthat I was the one that had been killed, and that I was deucedlyobliged to him for his _kind_ intentions, while I felt still more soto the enemy for their timely advance, otherwise, I have no doubt, butmy _friend_ would have taken a fancy to my trousers also, for I foundthat he had absolutely unbuttoned my jacket. There is nothing so gratifying to frail mortality as a good dinnerwhen most wanted and least expected. It was perfectly dark before theaction finished, but, on going to take advantage of the fires whichthe enemy had evacuated, we found their soup-kettles in fulloperation, and every man's mess of biscuit lying beside them, instockings, as was the French mode of carrying them; and it is needlessto say how unceremoniously we proceeded to do the honours of thefeast. It ever after became a saying among the soldiers, whenever theywere on short allowance, "well, d--n my eyes, we must either fall inwith the French or the commissary to-day, I don't care which. " As our baggage was always in the rear on occasions of this kind, theofficers of each company had a Portuguese boy, in charge of a donkey, on whom their little comforts depended. He carried our boat-cloaks andblankets, was provided with a small pig-skin for wine, a canteen forspirits, a small quantity of tea and sugar, a goat tied to the donkey, and two or three dollars in his pocket, for the purchase of bread, butter, or any other luxury which good fortune might throw in his wayin the course of the day's march. We were never very scrupulous inexacting information regarding the source of his supplies; so that hehad nothing to dread from our wrath, unless he had the misfortune tomake his appearance empty-handed. They were singularly faithful andintelligent in making their way to us every evening, under the mostdifficult circumstances. This was the only night during Massena'sretreat in which ours failed to find us; and, wandering the greaterpart of the night in the intricate maze of camp-fires, it appearedthat he slept, after all, among some dragoons, within twenty yards ofus. CHAP. VI. Passage of the Mondego. Swearing to a large Amount. Two Prisoners, with their Two Views. Two Nuns, Two Pieces of Dough, and Two Kisses. A Halt. Affair near Frexedas. Arrival near Guarda. Murder. A stray Sentry. Battle of Sabugal. Spanish and Portuguese Frontiers. Blockade of Almeida. Battle-like. Current Value of Lord Wellington's Nose. Battle of Fuentes D'Onor. The Day after the Battle. A grave Remark. The _Padre's_ House. Retreat of the Enemy. March 17th. --Found the enemy's rear-guard behind the Mondego, at Pontede Marcella, cannonaded them out of it, and then threw a temporarybridge across the river, and followed them until dark. The late Sir Alexander Campbell, who commanded the division next toours, by a wanton excess of zeal in expecting an order to follow, would not permit any thing belonging to us to pass the bridge, forfear of impeding the march of his troops; and, as he received no orderto march, we were thereby prevented from getting any thing whatever toeat for the next thirty-six hours. I know not whether the curses ofindividuals are recorded under such circumstances, but, if they are, the gallant general will have found the united hearty ones of fourthousand men registered against him for that particular act. March 19th. --We, this day, captured the aide-de-camp of GeneralLoison, together with his wife, who was dressed in a splendid hussaruniform. _He_ was a Portuguese, and a traitor, and looked very like aman who would be hanged. _She_ was a Spaniard, and very handsome, andlooked very like a woman who would get married again. March 20th. --We had now been three days without any thing in the shapeof bread, and meat without it, after a time, becomes almostloathsome. Hearing that we were not likely to march quite so early asusual this morning, I started, before daylight, to a village about twomiles off, in the face of the Sierra D'Estrella, in the hopes of beingable to purchase something, as it lay out of the hostile line ofmovements. On my arrival there, I found some nuns who had fled from aneighbouring convent, waiting outside the building of the village-ovenfor some Indian-corn-leaven, which they had carried there to be baked, and, when I explained my pressing wants, two of them, very kindly, transferred me their shares, for which I gave each a kiss and a dollarbetween. They took the former as an unusual favour; but looked at thelatter, as much as to say, "our poverty, and not our will, consents. "I ran off with my half-baked dough, and joined my comrades, just asthey were getting under arms. March 21st. --We, this day, reached the town of Mello, and had so faroutmarched our commissary that we found it necessary to wait for him;and, in stopping to get a sight of our friends, we lost sight of ourfoes, a circumstance which I was by no means sorry for, as it enabledmy shoulders, once more, to rejoice under the load of a couple ofbiscuits, and made me no longer ashamed to look a cow or a sheep inthe face, now that they were not required to furnish more than theirregulated proportions of my daily food. March 30th. --We had no difficulty in tracing the enemy, by the wrecksof houses and the butchered peasantry; and overtook their rear-guard, this day, busy grinding corn, in some windmills, near the village ofFrexedas. As their situation offered a fair opportunity for us to reapthe fruits of their labours, we immediately attacked and drove themfrom it, and, after securing what we wanted, we withdrew again, acrossthe valley, to the village of Alverca, where we were not without somereasonable expectations that they would have returned the compliment, as we had only a few squadrons of dragoons in addition to ourbattalion, and we had seen them withdraw a much stronger force fromthe opposite village; but, by keeping a number of our men all nightemployed in making extensive fires on the hill above, it induced themto think that our force was much greater than it really was; and weremained unmolested. The only person we had hit in this affair was our adjutant, Mr. Stewart, who was shot through the head from a window. He was a gallantsoldier, and deeply lamented. We placed his body in a chest, andburied it in front of Colonel Beckwith's quarters. March 31st. --At daylight, this morning, we moved to our right, alongthe ridge of mountains, to Guarda: on our arrival there, we saw theimposing spectacle of the whole of the French army winding through thevalley below, just out of gun-shot. On taking possession of one of the villages which they had justevacuated, we found the body of a well-dressed female, whom they hadmurdered by a horrible refinement in cruelty. She had been placed uponher back, alive, in the middle of the street, with the fragment of arock upon her breast, which it required four of our men to remove. April 1st. --We overtook the enemy this afternoon, in position, behindthe Coa, at Sabugal, with their advanced posts on our side of theriver. I was sent on piquet for the night, and had my sentries withinhalf-musket shot of theirs: it was wet, dark, and stormy when I went, about midnight, to visit them, and I was not a little annoyed to findone missing. Recollecting who he was, a steady old soldier and thelast man in the world to desert his post, I called his name aloud, when his answering voice, followed by the discharge of a musket, reached me nearly at the same time, from the direction of one of theFrench sentries; and, after some inquiry, I found that in walking hislonely round, in a brown study, no doubt, he had each turn taken tenor twelve paces to his front, and only half that number to the rear, until he had gradually worked himself up to within a few yards of hisadversary; and it would be difficult to say which of the two was mostastonished--the one at hearing a voice, or the other a shot so near, but all my rhetoric, aided by the testimony of the serjeant and theother sentries, could not convince the fellow that he was not on theidentical spot on which I had posted him. April 2d. --We moved this day to the right, nearer to the bridge, andsome shots were exchanged between the piquets. BATTLE OF SABUGAL, April 3d, 1811. Early this morning our division moved still farther to its right, andour brigade led the way across a ford, which took us up to the middle;while the balls from the enemy's advanced posts were hissing in thewater around us, we drove in their light troops and commenced afurious assault upon their main body. Thus far all was right; but athick drizzling rain now came on, in consequence of which the thirddivision, which was to have made a simultaneous attack to our left, missed their way, and a brigade of dragoons under Sir William Erskine, who were to have covered our right, went the Lord knows where, butcertainly not into the fight, although they started at the same timethat we did, and had the _music_ of our rifles to guide them; and, even the second brigade of our own division could not afford us anysupport, for nearly an hour, so that we were thus unconsciously leftwith about fifteen hundred men, in the very impertinent attempt tocarry a formidable position, on which stood as many thousands. The weather, which had deprived us of the aid of our friends, favouredus so far as to prevent the enemy from seeing the amount of our paltryforce; and the conduct of our gallant fellows, led on by Sir SidneyBeckwith, was so truly heroic, that, incredible as it may seem, we hadthe best of the fight throughout. Our first attack was met by suchoverwhelming numbers, that we were forced back and followed by threeheavy columns, before which we retired slowly, and keeping up adestructive fire, to the nearest rising ground, where we re-formed andinstantly charged their advancing masses, sending them flying at thepoint of the bayonet, and entering their position along with them, where we were assailed by fresh forces. Three times did the very samething occur. In our third attempt we got possession of one of theirhowitzers, for which a desperate struggle was making, when we were atthe same moment charged by infantry in front and cavalry on the right, and again compelled to fall back; but, fortunately, at this moment wewere reinforced by the arrival of the second brigade, and, with theiraid, we once more stormed their position and secured the well-earnedhowitzer, while the third division came at the same time upon theirflank, and they were driven from the field in the greatest disorder. Lord Wellington's despatch on this occasion did ample justice to SirSidney Beckwith and his brave brigade. Never were troops morejudiciously or more gallantly led. Never was a leader more devotedlyfollowed. In the course of the action a man of the name of Knight fell dead atmy feet, and though I heard a musket ball strike him, I could neitherfind blood nor wound. There was a little spaniel belonging to one of our officers runningabout the whole time, barking at the balls, and I saw him oncesmelling at a live shell, which exploded in his face without hurtinghim. The strife had scarcely ended among mortals, when it was taken up bythe elements with terrific violence. The _Scotch mist_ of the morninghad now increased to torrents, enough to cool the fever of our lateexcitement, and accompanied by thunder and lightning. As a complimentfor our exertions in the fight, we were sent into the town, and hadthe advantage of whatever cover its dilapidated state afforded. Whilethose who had not had the chance of getting broken skins, had now thebenefit of sleeping in wet ones. On the 5th of April we entered the frontiers of Spain, and slept in abed for the first time since I left the ship. Passing from thePortuguese to the Spanish frontier is about equal to taking one stepfrom the coal-hole into the parlour, for the cottages on the formerare reared with filth, furnished with ditto, and peopled accordingly;whereas, those of Spain, even within the same mile, are neatlywhitewashed, both without and within, and the poorest of them canfurnish a good bed, with clean linen, and the pillow-cases neatlyadorned with pink and sky-blue ribbons, while their dear little girlslook smiling and neat as their pillow-cases. After the action at Sabugal, the enemy retired to the neighbourhood ofCiudad Rodrigo, without our getting another look at them, and we tookup the line of the Agueda and Axava rivers, for the blockade of thefortress of Almeida, in which they had left a garrison indifferentlyprovisioned. The garrison had no means of providing for their cattle, but byturning them out to graze upon the glacis; and we sent a few of ourrifles to practice against them, which very soon reduced them to saltprovisions. Towards the end of April the French army began to assemble on theopposite bank of the Agueda to attempt the relief of the garrison, whileours began to assemble in position at Fuentes D'Onor to dispute it. Our division still continued to hold the same line of outposts, andhad several sharp affairs between the piquets at the bridge ofMarialva. As a general action seemed now to be inevitable, we anxiously longedfor the return of Lord Wellington, who had been suddenly called to thecorps of the army under Marshal Beresford, near Badajos, as we wouldrather see his long nose in the fight than a reinforcement of tenthousand men any day. Indeed, there was a charm not only about himselfbut all connected with him, for which no odds could compensate. Theknown abilities of Sir George Murray, the gallant bearing of thelamented Pakenham, of Lord Fitzroy Somerset, of the present Duke ofRichmond, Sir Colin Campbell, with others, the flower of our youngnobility and gentry, who, under the auspices of such a chief, seemedalways a group attendant on victory; and I'll venture to say thatthere was not a bosom in that army that did not beat more lightly, when we heard the joyful news of his arrival, the day before theenemy's advance. He had ordered us not to dispute the passage of the river, so thatwhen the French army advanced, on the morning of the 3d of May, weretired slowly before them, across the plains of Espeja, and drew intothe position, where the whole army was now assembled. Our divisiontook post in reserve, in the left centre. Towards evening, the enemymade a fierce attack on the Village of Fuentes, but were repulsed withloss. On the 4th, both armies looked at each other all day withoutexchanging shots. BATTLE OF FUENTES D'ONOR, May 5th, 1811. The day began to dawn, this fine May morning, with a rattling fire ofmusketry on the extreme right of our position, which the enemy hadattacked, and to which point our division was rapidly moved. Our battalion was thrown into a wood, a little to the left and frontof the division engaged, and was instantly warmly opposed to theFrench skirmishers; in the course of which I was struck with amusket-ball on the left breast, which made me stagger a yard or twobackward, and, as I felt no pain, I concluded that I was dangerouslywounded; but it turned out to be owing to my not being hurt. While ouroperations here were confined to a tame skirmish, and our view to theoaks with which we were mingled, we found, by the evidence of ourears, that the division which we had come to support was involved in amore serious onset, for _there_ was the successive rattle ofartillery, the wild hurrah of charging squadrons, and the repulsingvolley of musketry; until Lord Wellington, finding his right too muchextended, directed _that_ division to fall back behind the small riverTouronne, and ours to join the main body of the army. The execution ofour movement presented a magnificent military spectacle, as the plain, between us and the right of the army, was by this time in possessionof the French cavalry, and, while we were retiring through it with theorder and precision of a common field-day, they kept dancing aroundus, and every instant threatening a charge, without daring to executeit. We took up our new position at a right angle with the then right ofthe British line, on which our left rested, and with our right on theTouronne. The enemy followed our movement with a heavy column ofinfantry; but, when they came near enough to exchange shots, they didnot seem to like our looks, as we occupied a low ridge of brokenrocks, against which even a rat could scarcely have hoped to advancealive; and they again fell back, and opening a tremendous fire ofartillery, which was returned by a battery of our guns. In the courseof a short time, seeing no further demonstration against this part ofthe position, our division was withdrawn, and placed in reserve inrear of the centre. The battle continued to rage with fury in and about the village, whilst we were lying by our arms under a burning hot sun, some straycannon-shot passing over and about us, whose progress we watched forwant of other employment. One of them bounded along in the directionof an _amateur_, whom we had for some time been observing securelyplaced, as he imagined, behind a piece of rock, which stood about fivefeet above the ground, and over which nothing but his head was shown, sheltered from the sun by an umbrella. The shot in question touchedthe ground three or four times between us and him; he saw itcoming--lowered his umbrella, and withdrew his head. Its expiringbound carried it into the very spot where he had that instantdisappeared. I hope he was not hurt; but the thing looked soridiculous that it excited a shout of laughter, and we saw no more ofhim. A little before dusk, in the evening, our battalion was orderedforward to relieve the troops engaged in the village, part of whichstill remained in possession of the enemy, and I saw, by the mixednature of the dead, in every part of the streets, that it had beensuccessively in possession of both sides. The firing ceased with thedaylight, and I was sent, with a section of men, in charge of one ofthe streets for the night. There was a wounded Serjeant of highlanderslying on my post. A ball had passed through the back part of his head, from which the brain was oozing, and his only sign of life was aconvulsive hiccough every two or three seconds. I sent for a medicalfriend to look at him, who told me that he could not survive; I thengot a mattress from the nearest house, placed the poor fellow on it, and made use of one corner as a pillow for myself, on which, afterthe fatigues of the day, and though called occasionally to visit mysentries, I slept most soundly. The highlander died in the course ofthe night. When we stood to our arms, at daybreak next morning, we found theenemy busy throwing up a six-gun battery, immediately in front of ourcompany's post, and we immediately set to work, with our whole heartsand souls, and placed a wall, about twelve feet thick, between us, which, no doubt, still remains there in the same garden, as a monumentof what can be effected, in a few minutes, by a hundred modern men, when their personal safety is concerned; not but that the proprietor, in the midst of his admiration, would rather see a good bed of garlicon the spot, manured with the bodies of the architects. When the sun began to shine on the pacific disposition of the enemy, we proceeded to consign the dead to their last earthly mansions, giving every Englishman a grave to himself, and putting as manyFrenchmen into one as it could conveniently accommodate. Whilst inthe superintendence of this melancholy duty, and ruminating on thewords of the poet:-- "There's not a form of all that lie Thus ghastly, wild and bare, Tost, bleeding, in the stormy sky, Black in the burning air, But to his knee some infant clung, But on his heart some fond heart hung!" I was grieved to think that the souls of deceased warriors should beso selfish as to take to flight in their regimentals, for I never sawthe body of one with a rag on after battle. The day after one of those negative sort of victories is always one ofintense interest. The movements on each side are most jealouslywatched, and each side is diligently occupied in strengthening suchpoints as the fight of the preceding day had proved to be the mostvulnerable. Lord Wellington was too deficient in his cavalry force to justify hisfollowing up his victory; and the enemy, on their parts, had been tooroughly handled, in their last attempt, to think of repeating theexperiment; so that, during the next two days, though both armiescontinued to hold the same ground, there was scarcely a shotexchanged. They had made a few prisoners, chiefly guardsmen and highlanders, whomthey marched past the front of our position, in the most ostentatiousway, on the forenoon of the 6th; and, the day following, a number oftheir regiments were paraded in the most imposing manner for review. They looked uncommonly well, and we were proud to think that we hadbeaten such fine-looking fellows so lately! Our regiment had been so long and so often quartered in Fuentes thatit was like fighting for our fire-sides. The _Padre's_ house stood atthe top of the town. He was an old friend of ours, and an old fool, for he would not leave his house until it was too late to takeanything with him; but, curious enough, although it had beenrepeatedly in the possession of both sides, and plundered, no doubt, by many expert artists, yet none of them thought of looking so high asthe garret, which happened to be the repository of his money andprovisions. He came to us the day after the battle, weeping over hissupposed loss, like a sensitive Christian, and I accompanied him tothe house, to see whether there was not some consolation remaining forhim; but, when he found his treasure safe, he could scarcely bear itsrestoration with becoming gravity. I helped him to carry off his bagof dollars, and he returned the compliment with a leg of mutton. The French army retired on the night of the 7th, leaving Almeida toits fate; but, by an extraordinary piece of luck, the garrison madetheir escape the night after, in consequence of some mistake ormiscarriage of an order, which prevented a British regiment fromoccupying the post intended for it. May 8th. --We advanced this morning, and occupied our former post atEspeja, with some hopes of remaining quiet for a few days; but thealarm sounding at daylight on the following morning, we took post onthe hill, in front of the village. It turned out to be only a patroleof French cavalry, who retired on receiving a few shots from ourpiquets, and we saw no more of them for a considerable time. CHAP. VII. March to Estremadura. At Soito, growing Accommodations for Man and Beast. British Taste displayed by Portuguese Wolves. False Alarm. Luxuries of Roquingo Camp. A Chaplain of the Forces. Return towards the North. Quarters near Castello de Vide. Blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo. Village of Atalya; Fleas abundant; Food scarce. Advance of the French Army. Affairs near Guinaldo. Our Minister administered to. An unexpected Visit from our General and his Followers. End of the Campaign of 1811. Winter Quarters. Lord Wellington, soon after the battle of Fuentes, was again calledinto Estremadura, to superintend the operations of the corps of thearmy under Marshal Beresford, who had, in the mean time, fought thebattle of Albuera, and laid siege to Badajos. In the beginning ofJune our division was ordered thither also, to be in readiness to aidhis operations. We halted one night at the village of Soito, wherethere are a great many chestnut trees of very extraordinarydimensions; the outside of the trunk keeps growing as the insidedecays. I was one of a party of four persons who dined inside of one, and I saw two or three horses put up in several others. We halted, also, one night on the banks of the Coa, near Sabugal, andvisited our late field of battle. We found that the dead had beennearly all torn from their graves, and devoured by wolves, who are ingreat force in that wild mountainous district, and shew very littlerespect either for man or beast. They seldom, indeed, attack a man;but if one happens to tie his horse to a tree, and leaves himunattended, for a short time, he must not be surprised if he finds, onhis return, that he has parted with a good _rump steak_; _that_ is thepiece that they always prefer; and it is, therefore, clear to me, that the first of the wolves must have been reared in England! We experienced, in the course of this very dark night, one of thoseridiculous false alarms which will sometimes happen in the bestorganized body. Some bullocks strayed, by accident, amongst the pilesof arms, the falling clatter of which, frightened them so much thatthey went galloping over the sleeping soldiers. The officers'baggage-horses broke from their _moorings_, and joined in the generalcharge; and a cry immediately arose, that it was the French cavalry. The different regiments stood to their arms, and formed squares, looking as sharp as thunder for something to fire at; and it was aconsiderable time before the cause of the _row_ could be traced. Thedifferent followers of the army, in the mean time, were scampering offto the rear, spreading the most frightful reports. One woman of the52d succeeded in getting three leagues off before daylight, and swore, "that, as God was her judge, she did not leave her regiment until shesaw the last man of them cut to pieces!!!" On our arrival near Elvas, we found that Marshal Beresford had raisedthe siege of Badajos; and we were, therefore, encamped on the riverCaya, near Roquingo. This was a sandy unsheltered district; and theweather was so excessively hot, that we had no enjoyment, but that ofliving three parts of the day up to the neck in a pool of water. Up to this period it had been a matter of no small difficulty toascertain, at any time, the day of the week; that of the month wasaltogether out of the question, and could only be reckoned by countingback to the date of the last battle; but our division was here joinedby a chaplain, whose duty it was to remind us of these things. Hemight have been a very good man, but he was not prepossessing, eitherin his appearance or manners. I remember, the first Sunday after hisarrival, the troops were paraded for divine service, and had been sometime waiting in square, when he at length rode into the centre of it, with his tall, lank, ungainly figure, mounted on a starved, untrimmed, unfurnished horse, and followed by a Portuguese boy, with hiscanonicals and prayer-books on the back of a mule, with a hay-bridle, and having, by way of clothing, about half a pair of straw breeches. This spiritual comforter was the least calculated of any one that Iever saw to excite devotion in the minds of men, who had seen nothingin the shape of a divine for a year or two. In the beginning of August we began to retrace our steps towards thenorth. We halted a few days in Portalegré, and a few more at Castellode Vide. The latter place is surrounded by extensive gardens, belonging to thericher citizens; in each of which there is a small summer-house, containing one or two apartments, in which the proprietor, as I cantestify, may have the enjoyment of being fed upon by a more healthyand better appetized flea, than is to be met with in town houses ingeneral. These _quintas_ fell to the lot of our battalion; and though theirbeds, on that account, had not much sleep in them, yet, as those whopreferred the voice of the nightingale in a bed of cabbages, to thepinch of a flea in a bed of feathers, had the alternative at theiroption; I enjoyed my sojourn there very much. Each garden had abathing tank, with a plentiful supply of water, which at that seasonwas really a luxury; and they abounded in choice fruits. I thereformed an attachment to a mulberry-tree, which is still fondlycherished in my remembrance. We reached the scene of our former operations, in the north, towardsthe end of August. The French had advanced and blockaded Almeida, during our absence, butthey retired again on our approach, and we took up a more advancedposition than before, for the blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo. Our battalion occupied Atalya, a little village at the foot of theSierra de Gata, and in front of the River Vadilla. On takingpossession of my quarter, the people showed me an outhouse, which, they said, I might use as a stable, and I took my horse into it, but, seeing the floor strewed with what appeared to be a small brown seed, heaps of which lay in each corner, as if shovelled together inreadiness to take to market, I took up a handful, out of curiosity, and, truly, they were a curiosity, for I found that they were allregular fleas, and that they were proceeding to eat both me and myhorse, without the smallest ceremony. I rushed out of the place, andknocked them down by fistfuls, and never yet could comprehend thecause of their congregating together in such a place. This neighbourhood had been so long the theatre of war, andalternately forced to supply both armies, that the inhabitants, atlength, began to dread starvation themselves, and concealed, for theirprivate use, all that remained to them; so that, although they werebountiful in their assurances of good wishes, it was impossible toextract a loaf of their good bread, of which we were so wildly in wantthat we were obliged to conceal patroles on the different roads andfootpaths, for many miles around, to search the peasants passingbetween the different villages, giving them an order on the commissaryfor whatever we took from them; and we were not too proud to take evena few potatoes out of an old woman's basket. On one occasion, when some of us were out shooting, we discoveredabout twenty hives of bees, in the face of a glen, concealed among thegumcestus, and, stopping up the mouth of one them, we carried it homeon our shoulders, bees and all, and continued to levy contributions onthe _depot_ as long as we remained there. Towards the end of September, the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo began toget on such "short commons" that _Marmont_, who had succeeded_Massena_, in the command of the French army, found it necessary toassemble the whole of his forces, to enable him to throw provisionsinto it. Lord Wellington was still pursuing his defensive system, and did notattempt to oppose him; but Marmont, after having effected his object, thought that he might as well take that opportunity of beating up ourquarters, in return for the trouble we had given him; and, accordingly, on the morning of the 25th, he attacked a brigade of thethird division, stationed at El Bedon, which, after a brilliantdefence and retreat, conducted him opposite to the British position, in front of Fuente Guinaldo. He busied himself, the whole of thefollowing day, in bringing up his troops for the attack. Our division, in the mean time, remained on the banks of the Vadillo, and had nearlybeen cut off, through the obstinacy of General Crawford, who did notchoose to obey an order he received to retire the day before; but we, nevertheless, succeeded in joining the army, by a circuitous route, onthe afternoon of the 26th; and, the whole of both armies being nowassembled, we considered a battle on the morrow as inevitable. Lord Wellington, however, was not disposed to accommodate them on thisoccasion; for, about the middle of the night, we received an order tostand to our arms, with as little noise as possible, and to commenceretiring, the rest of the army having been already withdrawn, unknownto us; an instance of the rapidity and uncertainty of our movementswhich proved fatal to the liberty of several amateurs and followers ofthe army, who, seeing an army of sixty thousand men lying asleeparound their camp-fires, at ten o'clock at night, naturally concludedthat they might safely indulge in a bed in the village behind, untildaylight, without the risk of being caught napping; but, long ere thattime, they found themselves on the high road to Ciudad Rodrigo, in therude grasp of an enemy. Amongst others, was the chaplain of ourdivision, whose outward man, as I have already said, conveyed no veryexalted notion of the respectability of his profession, and who wastreated with greater indignity than usually fell to the lot ofprisoners, for, after keeping him a couple of days, and finding that, however gifted he might have been in spiritual lore, he was asignorant as Dominie Sampson on military matters; and, conceiving goodprovisions to be thrown away upon him, they stripped him nearly nakedand dismissed him, like the barber in Gil Blas, with a kick in thebreech, and sent him in to us in a woful state. September 27th. --General Crawford remained behind us this morning, with a troop of dragoons, to reconnoitre; and, while we were marchingcarelessly along the road, he and his dragoons galloped right into ourcolumn, with a cloud of French ones at his heels. Luckily, the groundwas in our favour; and, dispersing our men among the broken rocks, onboth sides of the road, we sent them back somewhat faster than theycame on. They were, however, soon replaced by their infantry, withwhom we continued in an uninteresting skirmish all day. There was somesharp firing, the whole of the afternoon, to our left; and we retired, in the evening, to Soito. This affair terminated the campaign of 1811, as the enemy retired thesame night, and we advanced next day to resume the blockade ofRodrigo; and were suffered to remain quietly in cantonments until thecommencement of a new year. In every interval between our active services, we indulged in allmanner of childish trick and amusement, with an avidity and delight ofwhich it is impossible to convey an adequate idea. We lived united, asmen always are who are daily staring death in the face on the sameside, and who, caring little about it, look upon each new day added totheir lives as one more to rejoice in. We invited the villagers, every evening, to a dance at our quartersalternately. A Spanish peasant girl has an address about her which Ihave never met with in the same class of any other country; and she atonce enters into society with the ease and confidence of one who hadbeen accustomed to it all her life. We used to flourish away at thebolero, fandango, and waltz, and wound up early in the evening with asupper of roasted chestnuts. Our village _belles_, as already stated, made themselves perfectly athome in our society, and we, too, should have enjoyed theirs for aseason; but, when month after month, and year after year, continued toroll along, without producing any change, we found that the cherrycheek and sparkling eye of rustic beauty furnished but a very poorapology for the illuminated portion of Nature's fairest works, andardently longed for an opportunity of once more feasting our eyes on a_lady_. In the month of December, we heard that the chief magistrate ofRodrigo, with whom we were personally acquainted, had, with hisdaughter and two other young ladies, taken shelter in Robledillo, alittle town in the Sierra de Gata, which, being within our range, presented an attraction not to be resisted. Half-a-dozen of us immediately resolved ourselves into a committee ofways and means. We had six months' pay due to us; so that the fandangomight have been danced in either of our pockets without the smallestrisk; but we had this consolation for our poverty, that there wasnothing to be bought, even if we had the means. Our only resource, therefore, was to lighten the cares of such of our brother-officers aswere fortunate enough to have any thing to lose; and, at this momentof doubt and difficulty, a small flock of turkeys, belonging to ourmajor, presented themselves, most imprudently, grazing opposite thewindows of our council-chamber, two of which were instantly committedto the bottom of a sack, as a foundation to go upon. One of our spies, soon after, apprehended a sheep, the property of another officer, which was committed to the same place; and, getting the commissary toadvance us a few extra loaves of bread, some ration beef, and apig-skin full of wine, we placed a servant on a mule, with the wholeconcern tackled to him, and proceeded on our journey. In passing over the mountain, we saw a wild boar bowling along, in themidst of a snow-storm, and, voting them fitting companions, wesuffered him to pass, (particularly as he did not come within shot). On our arrival at Robledillo, we met with the most cordial receptionfrom the old magistrate; who, entering into the spirit of our visit, provided us with quarters, and filled our room in the evening withevery body worth seeing in the place. We were malicious enough, by wayof amusement, to introduce a variety of absurd pastimes, under thepretence of their being English, and which, by virtue thereof, wereimplicitly adopted. We, therefore, passed a regular romping evening;and, at a late hour, having conducted the ladies to their homes, somefriars, who were of the party, very kindly, intended doing us the samefavour, and, with that view, had begun to precede us with theirlanterns, but, in the frolic of the moment, we set upon them withsnow-balls, some of which struck upon their broad shoulders, whileothers fizzed against their fiery faces, and, in their astonishmentand alarm, all sanctimony was forgotten; their oaths flew as thick asour snow-balls, while they ran ducking their heads and dousing theirlights, for better concealment; but we, nevertheless, persevered untilwe had pelted each to his own home. We were, afterwards, afraid that we had carried the joke rather toofar, and entertained some doubts as to the propriety of holding ourquarters for another day; but they set our minds at rest on thatpoint, by paying us an early visit in the morning, and seemed to enjoythe joke in a manner that we could not have expected from the gravityof their looks. We passed two more days much in the same manner, and, on the third, returned to our cantonments, and found that our division had moved, during our absence, into some villages nearer to Ciudad Rodrigo, preparatory to the siege of that place. On inquiry, we found that we had never been suspected for the_abduction_ of the sheep and turkeys, but that the blame, on thecontrary, had been attached to the poor soldiers, whose soup had beentasted every day to see if it savoured of such dainties. Theproprietor of the turkeys was so particularly indignant that wethought it prudent not to acknowledge ourselves as the culprits untilsome time afterwards, when, as one of our party happened to be killedin action, we, very uncharitably, put the whole of it on hisshoulders. CHAP. VIII. Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. The Garrison of an Outwork relieved. Spending an Evening abroad. A Musical Study. An Addition to Soup. A short Cut. Storming of the Town. A sweeping Clause. Advantages of leading a Storming Party. Looking for a Customer. Disadvantages of being a stormed Party. Confusion of all Parties. A waking Dream. Death of General Crawford. Accident. Deaths. SIEGE OF CIUDAD RODRIGO, January 8th, 1812. The campaign of 1812 commenced with the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, whichwas invested by our division on the 8th of January. There was a smartish frost, with some snow on the ground; and, when wearrived opposite the fortress, about midday, the garrison did notappear to think that we were in earnest, for a number of theirofficers came out, under the shelter of a stone-wall, within halfmusket-shot, and amused themselves in saluting and bowing to us inridicule; but, ere the day was done, some of them had occasion to wearthe laugh on the opposite side of the countenance. We lay by our arms until dark, when a party, consisting of a hundredvolunteers from each regiment, under Colonel Colborne, of thefifty-second, stormed and carried the Fort of St. Francisco, after ashort sharp action, in which the whole of its garrison were taken ordestroyed. The officer who commanded it was a chattering littlefellow, and acknowledged himself to have been one of our salutingfriends of the morning. He kept, incessantly, repeating a few words ofEnglish which he had picked up during the assault, and the only ones, I fancy, that were spoken, viz. "dem eyes, b--t eyes!" and, indemanding the meaning of them, he required that we should, also, explain why we stormed a place without first besieging it; for, hesaid, that another officer would have relieved him of his charge atdaylight, had _we_ not _relieved_ him of it sooner. The enemy had calculated that this outwork would have kept us at bayfor a fortnight or three weeks; whereas, its capture, the first night, enabled us to break ground at once, within breaching distance of thewalls of the town. They kept up a very heavy fire the whole night onthe working parties; but, as they aimed at random, we did not suffermuch; and made such good use of our time that, when daylight enabledthem to see what we were doing, we had dug ourselves under tolerablecover. In addition to ours, the first, third, and fourth divisions wereemployed in the siege. Each took the duties for twenty-four hoursalternately, and returned to their cantonments during the interval. We were relieved by the first division, under Sir Thomas Graham, onthe morning of the 9th, and marched to our quarters. Jan. 12th. --At ten o'clock this morning we resumed the duties of thesiege. It still continued to be dry frosty weather; and, as we wereobliged to ford the Agueda, up to the middle, every man carried a pairof iced breeches into the trenches with him. My turn of duty did not arrive until eight in the evening, when I wasordered to take thirty men with shovels to dig holes for ourselves, asnear as possible to the walls, for the delectable amusement of firingat the embrasures for the remainder of the night. The enemy threwfrequent fire-balls among us, to see where we were; but, as we alwayslay snug until their blaze was extinguished, they were not much thewiser, except by finding, from having some one popt off from theirguns every instant, that they had got some neighbours whom they wouldhave been glad to get rid of. We were relieved as usual at ten next morning, and returned to ourcantonments. January 16th. --Entered on our third day's duty, and found thebreaching batteries in full operation, and our approaches close to thewalls on every side. When we arrived on the ground I was sent to takecommand of the highland company, which we had at that time in theregiment, and which was with the left wing, under Colonel Cameron. Ifound them on piquet, between the right of the trenches and the river, half of them posted at a mud-cottage, and the other half in a ruinedconvent, close under the walls. It was a very tolerable post when atit; but it is no joke travelling by daylight up to within a stone'sthrow of a wall, on which there is a parcel of fellows who have noother amusement but to fire at every body they see. We could not show our noses at any point without being fired at; but, as we were merely posted there to protect the right flank of thetrenches from any sortie, we did not fire at them, and kept as quietas could be, considering the deadly blast that was blowing around us. There are few situations in life where something cannot be learnt, andI, myself, stand indebted to my twenty-four hours' residence there, for a more correct knowledge of martial sounds than in the study of mywhole life time besides. They must be an unmusical pair of ears thatcannot inform the wearer whither a cannon or a musket played last, butthe various _notes_, emanating from their respective mouths, admit ofnice distinctions. My party was too small, and too well sheltered torepay the enemy for the expense of shells and round shot; but thequantity of grape and musketry aimed at our particular heads, made agood concert of first and second whistles, while the more sonorousvoice of the round shot, travelling to our friends on the left, actedas a thorough bass; and there was not a shell, that passed over us tothe trenches, that did not send back a fragment among us as soon as itburst, as if to gratify a curiosity that I was far from expressing. We went into the cottage soon after dark, to partake of something thathad been prepared for dinner; and, when in the middle of it, a roundshot passed through both walls, immediately over our heads, andgarnished the soup with a greater quantity of our parent earth thanwas quite palatable. We were relieved, as usual, by the first division, at ten nextmorning; and, to avoid as much as possible the destructive fire fromthe walls, they sent forward only three or four men at a time, and wesent ours away in the same proportions. Every thing is by comparison in this world, and it is curious toobserve how men's feelings change with circumstances. In cool blood aman would rather go a little out of his way than expose himself tounnecessary danger; but we found, this morning, that by crossing theriver where we then were, and running the gauntlet for a mile, exposedto the fire of two pieces of artillery, that we should be saved thedistance of two or three miles in returning to our quarters. Aftercoming out of such a _furnace_ as we had been frying in, the otherfire was not considered a fire at all, and passed without a moment'shesitation. STORMING OF CIUDAD RODRIGO. January 19th, 1812. --We moved to the scene of operations, about twoo'clock this afternoon; and, as it was a day before our regular turn, we concluded that we were called there to lend a hand in finishing thejob we had begun so well; nor were we disappointed, for we found thattwo practicable breaches had been effected, and that the place was tobe stormed in the evening by the third and light divisions, the formerby the right breach, and the latter by the left, while some Portuguesetroops were to attempt an escalade on the opposite sides of the town. About eight o'clock in the evening our division was accordingly formedfor the assault, behind a convent, near the left breach, in thefollowing order:--viz. 1st. Four companies of our battalion, under Colonel Cameron, to line the crest of the glacis, and fire upon the ramparts. 2d. Some companies of Portuguese, carrying bags filled with hay and straw, for throwing into the ditch, to facilitate the passage of the storming party. 3d. The _forlorn hope_, consisting of an officer and twenty-five volunteers. 4th. The _storming party_, consisting of three officers and one hundred volunteers from each regiment, the officers from ours were Captain Mitchell, Mr. Johnstone, and myself, and the whole under the command of Major Napier, of the fifty-second. 5th. The main body of the division, under General Crawford, with one brigade, under Major-General Vandeleur, and the other under Colonel Barnard. At a given signal the different columns advanced to the assault; thenight was tolerably clear, and the enemy evidently expected us; for, as soon as we turned the corner of the convent-wall, the spacebetween us and the breach became one blaze of light with theirfire-balls, which, while they lighted us on to glory, lightened not afew of their lives and limbs; for the whole glacis was in consequenceswept by a well directed fire of grape and musketry, and they are thedevil's own brooms; but our gallant fellows walked through it, to thepoint of attack, with the most determined steadiness, excepting thePortuguese sack-bearers, most of whom lay down behind their bags, towait the result, while the few that were thrown into the ditch lookedso like dead bodies, that, when I leapt into it, I tried to avoidthem. The advantage of being on a storming party is considered as giving theprior claim to be _put out of pain_, for they receive the first fire, which is generally the best, not to mention that they are alsoexpected to receive the earliest salutation from the beams of timber, hand-grenades, and other missiles, which the garrison are generallyprepared to transfer from the top of the wall, to the tops of theheads of their foremost visitors. But I cannot say that I, myself, experienced any such preference, for every ball has a considerabledistance to travel, and I have generally found them equally ready topick up their man at the end, as at the beginning of their flight;luckily, too, the other preparations cannot always be accommodated tothe moment, so that, on the whole, the _odds_ are pretty _even_, that, all concerned come in for an equal share of whatever happens to begoing on. We had some difficulty at first in finding the breach, as we hadentered the ditch opposite to a ravelin, which we mistook for abastion. I tried first one side of it and then the other, and seeingone corner of it a good deal battered, with a ladder placed againstit, I concluded that it must be the breach, and calling to thesoldiers near me, to follow. I mounted with the most ferocious intent, carrying a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other; but, when Igot up, I found nobody to fight with, except two of our own men, whowere already laid dead across the top of the ladder. I saw, in amoment, that I had got into the wrong box, and was about to descendagain, when I heard a shout from the opposite side, that the breachwas there; and, moving in that direction, I dropped myself from theravelin, and landed in the ditch, opposite to the foot of the breach, where I found the head of the storming party just beginning to fighttheir way into it. The combat was of short duration, and, in less thanhalf an hour from the commencement of the attack, the place was in ourpossession. After carrying the breach, we met with no further opposition, andmoved round the ramparts to see that they were perfectly clear of theenemy, previous to entering the town. I was fortunate enough to takethe left-hand circuit, by accident, and thereby escaped the fate whichbefel a great portion of those who went to the right, and who wereblown up, along with some of the third division, by the accidentalexplosion of a magazine. I was highly amused, in moving round the ramparts, to find some of thePortuguese troops just commencing their escalade, on the oppositeside, near the bridge, in ignorance of the place having alreadyfallen. Gallantly headed by their officers, they had got some laddersplaced against the wall, while about two thousand voices from the rearwere cheering, with all their might, for mutual encouragement; and, like most other troops, under similar circumstances, it appeared to methat their feet and their tongues went at a more equal pace after wegave them the hint. On going a little further, we came opposite to theravelin, which had been my chief annoyance during my last days'piquet. It was still crowded by the enemy, who had now thrown downtheir arms, and endeavoured to excite our pity by virtue of theirbeing "Pauvres Italianos;" but our men had, somehow, imbibed ahorrible antipathy to the Italians, and every appeal they made in thatname was invariably answered with, --"You're Italians, are you? then, d--n you, here's a shot for you;" and the action instantly followedthe word. A town taken by storm presents a frightful scene of outrage. Thesoldiers no sooner obtain possession of it, than they think themselvesat liberty to do what they please. It is enough for them that there_had_ been an enemy on the ramparts; and, without considering that thepoor inhabitants may, nevertheless, be friends and allies, they, inthe first moment of excitement, all share one common fate; and nothingbut the most extraordinary exertions on the part of the officers canbring them back to a sense of their duty. We continued our course round the ramparts until we met the head ofthe column which had gone by the right, and then descended into thetown. At the entrance of the first street, a French officer came outof a door and claimed my protection, giving me his sword. He told methat there was another officer in the same house who was afraid toventure out, and entreated that I would go in for him. I, accordingly, followed him up to the landing-place of a dark stair, and, while hewas calling to his friend, by name, to come down, "as there was anEnglish officer present who would protect him, " a violent screamingbroke through a door at my elbow. I pushed it open, and found thelandlady struggling with an English soldier, whom I immediatelytransferred to the bottom of the stair head foremost. The Frenchofficer had followed me in at the door, and was so astonished at allhe saw, that he held up his hands, turned up the whites of his eyes, and resolved himself into a state of the most eloquent silence. Whenhe did recover the use of his tongue, it was to recommend his landladyto my notice, as the most amiable woman in existence. She, on herpart, professed the most unbounded gratitude, and entreated that Iwould make her house my home forever; but, when I called upon her, afew days after, she denied having ever seen me before, and stuck to itmost religiously. As the other officer could not be found, I descended into the streetagain with my prisoner; and, finding the current of soldiers settingtowards the centre of the town, I followed the stream, which conductedme into the great square, on one side of which the late garrison weredrawn up as prisoners, and the rest of it was filled with British andPortuguese intermixed, without any order or regularity. I had beenthere but a very short time, when they all commenced firing, withoutany ostensible cause; some fired in at the doors and windows, some atthe roofs of houses, and others at the clouds; and, at last, someheads began to be blown from their shoulders in the general hurricane, when the voice of Sir Thomas Picton, with the power of twentytrumpets, began to proclaim damnation to every body, while ColonelBarnard, Colonel Cameron, and some other active officers, werecarrying it into effect with a strong hand; for, seizing the brokenbarrels of muskets, which were lying about in great abundance, theybelaboured every fellow, most unmercifully, about the head whoattempted either to load or fire, and finally succeeded in reducingthem to order. In the midst of the scuffle, however, three of thehouses in the square were set on fire; and the confusion was such thatnothing could be done to save them; but, by the extraordinaryexertions of Colonel Barnard, during the whole of the night, theflames were prevented from communicating to the adjoining buildings. We succeeded in getting a great portion of our battalion together byone o'clock in the morning, and withdrew with them to the ramparts, where we lay by our arms until daylight. There is nothing in this life half so enviable as the feelings of asoldier after a victory. Previous to a battle, there is a certain sortof something that pervades the mind which is not easily defined; it isneither akin to joy or fear, and, probably, _anxiety_ may be nearer toit than any other word in the dictionary: but, when the battle isover, and crowned with victory, he finds himself elevated for awhileinto the regions of absolute bliss! It had ever been the summit of myambition to attain a post at the head of a storming party:--my wishhad now been accomplished, and gloriously ended; and I do think that, after all was over, and our men laid asleep on the ramparts, that Istrutted about as important a personage, in my own opinion, as evertrod the face of the earth; and, had the ghost of the renownedJack-the-giant-killer itself passed that way at the time, I'll ventureto say, that I would have given it a kick in the breech without thesmallest ceremony. But, as the sun began to rise, I began to fall fromthe heroics; and, when he showed his face, I took a look at my own, and found that I was too unclean a spirit to worship, for I wascovered with mud and dirt, with the greater part of my dress torn torags. The fifth division, which had not been employed in the siege, marchedin, and took charge of the town, on the morning of the 20th, and weprepared to return to our cantonments. Lord Wellington happened to beriding in at the gate at the time that we were marching out, and hadthe curiosity to ask the officer of the leading company, what regimentit was, for there was scarcely a vestige of uniform among the men, some of whom were dressed in Frenchmen's coats, some in whitebreeches, and huge jack-boots, some with cocked hats and queues; mostof their swords were fixed on the rifles, and stuck full of hams, tongues, and loaves of bread, and not a few were carrying bird-cages!There never was a better masked corps! General Crawford fell on the glacis, at the head of our division, andwas buried at the foot of the breach which they so gallantly carried. His funeral was attended by Lord Wellington, and all the officers ofthe division, by whom he was, ultimately, much liked. He hadintroduced a system of discipline into the light division which madethem unrivalled. A very rigid exaction of the duties pointed out inhis code of regulations made him very unpopular at its commencement, and it was not until a short time before he was lost to us for ever, that we were capable of appreciating his merits, and fully sensible ofthe incalculable advantages we derived from the perfection of hissystem. Among other things carried from Ciudad Rodrigo, one of our men had themisfortune to carry his death in his hands, under the mistaken shapeof amusement. He thought that it was a cannon-ball, and took it forthe purpose of playing at the game of nine-holes, but it happened tobe a live shell. In rolling it along it went over a bed of burningashes, and ignited without his observing it. Just as he had got itbetween his legs, and was in the act of discharging it a second time, it exploded, and nearly blew him to pieces. Several men of our division, who had deserted while we were blockadingCiudad Rodrigo, were taken when it fell, and were sentenced to beshot. Lord Wellington extended mercy to every one who could procureany thing like a good character from his officers; but six of them, who could not, were paraded and shot, in front of the division, nearthe village of Ituera. Shooting appears to me to be a cruel kind ofexecution, for twenty balls may pierce a man's body without touching avital spot. On the occasion alluded to, two of the men remainedstanding after the first fire, and the Provost-Marshal was obliged toput an end to their sufferings, by placing the muzzle of a piece ateach of their heads. CHAP. IX. March to Estremadura. A Deserter shot. Riding for an Appetite. Effect the Cure of a sick Lady. Siege of Badajos. Trench-Work. Varieties during the Siege. Taste of the Times. Storming of the Town. Its Fall. Officers of a French Battalion. Not shot by Accident. Military Shopkeepers. Lost Legs and cold Hearts. Affecting Anecdote. My Servant. A Consignment to Satan. March again for the North. Sir Sidney Beckwith. We remained about six weeks in cantonments, after the fall of CiudadRodrigo; and, about the end of February, were again put in motiontowards Estremadura. March 7th. --Arrived near Castello de Vide, and quartered in theneighbouring villages. Another deserter, who had also been taken atthe storming of Ciudad Rodrigo, was here shot, under the sentence ofa court martial. When he was paraded for that purpose, he protestedagainst their right to shoot him, until he first received the arrearsof pay which was due at the time of his desertion. March 14th. --Two of us rode out this afternoon to kill time untildinner hour (six); but, when we returned to our quarters, there wasnot a vestige of the regiment remaining, and our appetites wereconsiderably whetted, by having an additional distance of fourteenmiles to ride, in the dark, over roads on which we could not trust ourhorses out of a walk. We joined them, at about eleven at night, in thetown of Portalegré. March 16th. --Quartered in the town of Elvas. I received a billet on a neat little house, occupied by an old ladyand her daughter, who were very desirous of evading such anincumbrance. For, after resisting my entrance, until successiveapplications of my foot had reduced the door to a condition whichwould no longer second their efforts, the old lady resolved to try meon another _tack_; and, opening the door, and, making a sign for meto make no noise, she told me, in a whisper, that her daughter waslying dangerously ill of a fever, in the only bed in the house, andthat she was, therefore, excessively sorry that she could notaccommodate me. As this information did not at all accord with mynotions of consistency, after their having suffered the preceding halfhour's bombardment, I requested to be shewn to the chamber of theinvalid, saying that I was a _medico_, and might be of service to her. When she found remonstrance unavailing, she at length shewed me into aroom up-stairs, where there was a very genteel-looking young girl, thevery picture of _Portuguese_ health, lying with her eyes shut, in fulldress, on the top of the bed-clothes, where she had hurriedly thrownherself. Seeing, at once, how matters stood, I walked up to the bed-side, andhit her a slap on the thigh with my hand, asking her, at the sametime, how she felt herself? and never did Prince Hohenloe, himself, perform a miracle more cleverly; for she bounced almost as high as theceiling, and flounced about the room, as well and as actively asever she did, with a countenance in which shame, anger, and a greatportion of natural humour were so amusingly blended, that I wastempted to provoke her still further by a salute. Having thussatisfied the mother that I had been the means of restoring herdaughter to her usual state of health, she thought it prudent to putthe best face upon it, and, therefore, invited me to partake of theirfamily dinner; in the course of which I succeeded so well in eating myway into their affections, that we parted next morning with mutualregret; they told me that I was the _best_ officer they had ever seen, and begged that I would always make their house my home; but I wasnever fated to see them again. We marched in the morning for Badajos. SIEGE OF BADAJOS. On the 17th of March, 1812, the _third_, _fourth_, and _lightdivisions_, encamped around Badajos, embracing the whole of theinland side of the town on the left bank of the Guadiana, andcommenced breaking ground before it immediately after dark the samenight. The elements, on this occasion, adopted the cause of the besieged; forwe had scarcely taken up our ground, when a heavy rain commenced, andcontinued, almost without intermission, for a fortnight; inconsequence thereof, the pontoon-bridge, connecting us with oursupplies from Elvas, was carried away, by the rapid increase of theriver, and the duties of the trenches were otherwise renderedextremely harassing. We had a smaller force employed than at Rodrigo;and the scale of operations was so much greater, that it requiredevery man to be actually in the trenches six hours every day, and thesame length of time every night, which, with the time required tomarch to and from them, through fields more than ankle deep in a stiffmud, left us never more than eight hours out of the twenty-four incamp, and we never were dry the whole time. One day's trench-work is as like another as the days themselves; andlike nothing better than serving an apprenticeship to the doublecalling of grave-digger and game-keeper, for we found ample employmentboth for the spade and the rifle. The only varieties during the siege were, --First, The storming of_Picuvina_, a formidable outwork, occupying the centre of ouroperations. It was carried one evening, in the most gallant style, byMajor-General Sir James Kempt, at the head of the covering parties. Secondly, A sortie made by the garrison, which they got the worst of, although they succeeded in stealing some of our pickaxes and shovels. Thirdly, A _circumbendibus_ described by a few daring French dragoons, who succeeded in getting into the rear of our engineers' camp, at thattime unguarded, and lightened some of the officers of theirepaulettes. Lastly, Two field-pieces taken by the enemy to theopposite side of the river, enfilading one of our parallels, andmaterially disturbing the harmony within, as a cannon-shot is no verywelcome guest among gentlemen who happen to be lodged in a straightditch, without the power of _cutting_ it. Our batteries were supplied with ammunition, by the Portuguesemilitia, from Elvas, a string of whom used to arrive every day, reaching nearly from the one place to the other (twelve miles), eachman carrying a twenty-four pound shot, and cursing all the way andback again. The Portuguese artillery, under British officers, was uncommonly good. I used to be much amused in looking at a twelve-gun breaching-batteryof theirs. They knew the position of all the enemy's guns which could bear uponthem, and had one man posted to watch them, to give notice of what wascoming, whether a shot or a shell, who, accordingly, kept calling out, "_bomba, balla, balla, bomba_;" and they ducked their heads until themissile past: but, sometimes he would see a general discharge from allarms, when he threw himself down, screaming out "_Jesus, todos, todos!_" meaning "every thing. " An officer of ours was sent one morning, before daylight, with tenmen, to dig holes for themselves, opposite to one of the enemy's guns, which had been doing a great deal of mischief the day before, and hehad soon the satisfaction of knowing the effect of his practice, byseeing them stopping up the embrasure with sandbags. After waiting alittle, he saw them beginning to remove the bags, when he made his menopen upon it again, and they were instantly replaced without the gunsbeing fired; presently he saw the huge cocked hat of a French officermake its appearance on the rampart, near to the embrasure; butknowing, by experience, that the _head_ was somewhere in theneighbourhood, he watched until the flash of a musket, through thelong grass, showed the position of the owner, and, calling one of hisbest shots, he desired him to take deliberate aim at the spot, andlent his shoulder as a rest, to give it more elevation. Bang went theshot, and it was the finishing flash for the Frenchman, for they sawno more of _him_, although his cocked hat maintained its post untildark. In proportion as the grand crisis approached, the anxiety of thesoldiers increased; not on account of any doubt or dread as to theresult, but for fear that the place should be surrendered withoutstanding an assault; for, singular as it may appear, although therewas a certainty of about one man out of every three being knockeddown, there were, perhaps, not three men, in the three divisions, whowould not rather have braved all the chances than receive it tamelyfrom the hands of the enemy. So great was the rage for passports intoeternity, in our battalion, on that occasion, that even the officers'servants insisted on taking their places in the ranks; and I wasobliged to leave my baggage in charge of a man who had been woundedsome days before. On the 6th of April, three practicable breaches had been effected, and arrangements were made for assaulting the town that night. Thethird division, by escalade, at the castle; a brigade of the fifthdivision, by escalade, at the opposite side of the town; while thefourth and light divisions were to storm the breaches. The whole wereordered to be formed for the attack at eight o'clock. STORMING OF BADAJOS, April 6th, 1812. Our division formed for the attack of the left breach in the sameorder as at Ciudad Rodrigo; the command of it had now devolved uponour commandant, Colonel Barnard. I was then the acting adjutant offour companies, under Colonel Cameron, who were to line the crest ofthe glacis, and to fire at the ramparts and the top of the leftbreach. The enemy seemed aware of our intentions. The fire of artillery andmusketry, which, for three weeks before, had been incessant, bothfrom the town and trenches, had now entirely ceased, as if by mutualconsent, and a deathlike silence, of nearly an hour, preceded theawful scene of carnage. The signal to advance was made about nine o'clock, and our fourcompanies led the way. Colonel Cameron and myself had reconnoitred theground so accurately by daylight, that we succeeded in bringing thehead of our column to the very spot agreed on, opposite to the leftbreach, and then formed line to the left, without a word being spoken, each man lying down as he got into line, with the muzzle of his rifleover the edge of the ditch, between the pallisades, all ready to open. It was tolerably clear above, and we distinctly saw _their_ headslining the ramparts; but there was a sort of haze on the ground which, with the colour of our dress, prevented them from seeing us, althoughonly a few yards asunder. One of their sentries, however, challengedus twice, "_qui vive_, " and, receiving no reply, he fired off hismusket, which was followed by their drums beating to arms; but _we_still remained perfectly quiet, and all was silence again for thespace of five or ten minutes, when the head of the forlorn hope atlength came up, and we took advantage of the first fire, while theenemy's heads were yet visible. The scene that ensued furnished as respectable a representation ofhell itself as fire, and sword, and human sacrifices could make it;for, in one instant, every engine of destruction was in fulloperation. It is in vain to attempt a description of it. We were entirelyexcluded from the right breach by an inundation which the heavy rainshad enabled the enemy to form; and the two others were renderedtotally impracticable by their interior defences. The five succeeding hours were therefore past in the most gallant andhopeless attempts, on the part of individual officers, forming upfifty or a hundred men at a time at the foot of the breach, andendeavouring to carry it by desperate bravery; and, fatal as it provedto each gallant band, in succession, yet, fast as one dissolved, another was formed. We were informed, about twelve at night, that thethird division had established themselves in the castle; but, as itssituation and construction did not permit them to extend theiroperations beyond it at the moment, it did not in the least affect ouropponents at the breach, whose defence continued as obstinate as ever. I was near Colonel Barnard after midnight, when he received repeatedmessages, from Lord Wellington, to withdraw from the breach, and toform the division for a renewal of the attack at daylight; but, asfresh attempts continued to be made, and the troops were stillpressing forward into the ditch, it went against his gallant soul toorder a retreat while yet a chance remained; but, after headingrepeated attempts himself, he saw that it was hopeless, and the orderwas reluctantly given about two o'clock in the morning. We fell backabout three hundred yards, and re-formed all that remained to us. Our regiment, alone, had to lament the loss of twenty-two officerskilled and wounded, ten of whom were killed, or afterwards died oftheir wounds. We had scarcely got our men together when we wereinformed of the success of the fifth division in their escalade, andthat the enemy were, in consequence, abandoning the breaches, and wewere immediately ordered forward to take possession of them. On ourarrival, we found them entirely evacuated, and had not occasion tofire another shot; but we found the utmost difficulty, and evendanger, in getting in in the dark, even without opposition. As soon aswe succeeded in establishing our battalion inside, we sent piquetsinto the different streets and lanes leading from the breach, and keptthe remainder in hand until day should throw some light on oursituation. When I was in the act of posting one of the piquets, a man of oursbrought me a prisoner, telling me that he was the governor; but theother immediately said that he had only called himself so, the betterto ensure his protection; and then added, that he was the colonel ofone of the French regiments, and that all his surviving officers wereassembled at his quarters, in a street close by, and would surrenderthemselves to any officer who would go with him for that purpose. Iaccordingly took two or three men with me, and, accompanying himthere, found fifteen or sixteen of them assembled, and all seemingvery much surprised at the unexpected termination of the siege. Theycould not comprehend under what circumstances the town had been lost, and repeatedly asked me how I had got in; but I did not choose toexplain further than simply telling them that I had entered at thebreach, coupling the information with a look which was calculated toconvey somewhat more than I knew myself; for, in truth, when I beganto recollect that a few minutes before had seen me retiring from thebreach, under a fanciful overload of degradation, I thought that I hadnow as good a right as any man to be astonished at finding myself_lording_ it over the officers of a French battalion; nor was I muchwiser than they were, as to the manner of its accomplishment. Theywere all very much dejected, excepting their major, who was a bigjolly-looking Dutchman, with medals enough, on his left breast, tohave furnished the window of a tolerable toy-shop. His accomplishmentswere after the manner of Captain Dougal Dalgetty; and, while hecracked his joke, he was not inattentive to the cracking of the corksfrom the many wine-bottles which his colonel placed on the tablesuccessively, along with some cold meat, for general refreshment, prior to marching into captivity, and which I, though a free man, wasnot too proud to join them in. When I had allowed their chief a reasonable time to secure whatvaluables he wished, about his person, he told me that he had twohorses in the stable, which, as he would no longer be permitted tokeep, he recommended me to take; and, as a horse is the only thing onsuch occasions that an officer can permit himself to consider a legalprize, I caused one of them to be saddled, and his handsome black marethereby became my charger during the remainder of the war. In proceeding with my prisoners towards the breach, I took, bymistake, a different road to that I came; and, as numbers of Frenchmenwere lurking about for a safe opportunity of surrendering themselves, about a hundred additional ones added themselves to my column, as wemoved along, _jabbering_ their native dialect so loudly, as nearly tooccasion a dire catastrophe, as it prevented me from hearing some onechallenge in my front; but, fortunately, it was repeated, and Iinstantly answered; for Colonel Barnard and Sir Colin Campbell had apiquet of our men, drawn across the street, on the point of sending avolley into us, thinking that we were a rallied body of the enemy. The whole of the garrison were marched off, as prisoners, to Elvas, about ten o'clock in the morning, and our men were then permitted tofall out, to enjoy themselves for the remainder of the day, as areward for having kept together so long as they were wanted. The wholeof the three divisions were, by this time, loose in the town; and theusual frightful scene of plunder commenced, which the officers thoughtit necessary to avoid for the moment, by retiring to the camp. We went into the town on the morning of the 8th, to endeavour tocollect our men, but only succeeded in part, as the same extraordinaryscene of plunder and rioting still continued. Wherever there was anything to eat or drink, the only saleable commodities, the soldiers hadturned the shopkeepers out of doors, and placed themselves regularlybehind the counter, selling off the contents of the shop. By and bye, another and a stronger party would kick those out in their turn, andthere was no end to the succession of self-elected shopkeepers, untilLord Wellington found that, to restore order, severe measures must beresorted to. On the third day, he caused a Portuguese brigade to bemarched in, and kept standing to their arms, in the great square, where the provost-martial erected a gallows, and proceeded to suspenda few of the delinquents, which very quickly cleared the town of theremainder, and enabled us to give a more satisfactory account of ourbattalion than we had hitherto been able to do. It is wonderful how such scenes as these will deaden men's finerfeelings, and with what apathy it enables them to look upon thesufferings of their fellow creatures! The third day after the fall ofthe town, I rode, with Colonel Cameron, to take a bathe in theGuadiana, and, in passing the verge of the camp of the 5th division, we saw two soldiers standing at the door of a small shed, or outhouse, shouting, waving their caps, and making signs that they wanted tospeak to us. We rode up to see what they wanted, and found that thepoor fellows had each lost a leg. They told us that a surgeon haddressed their wounds on the night of the assault, but that they hadever since been without food or assistance of any kind, although they, each day, had opportunities of soliciting the aid of many of theircomrades, from whom they could obtain nothing but promises. In short, surrounded by thousands of their countrymen within call, and not morethan three hundred yards from their own regiment, they were unable tointerest any one in their behalf, and were literally starving. It is unnecessary to say that we instantly galloped back to the campand had them removed to the hospital. On the morning of the 7th, when some of our officers were performingthe last duties to their fallen comrades, one of them had collectedthe bodies of four of our young officers, who had been slain. He wasin the act of digging a grave for them, when an officer of the guards, arrived on the spot, from a distant division of the army, and demandedtidings of his brother, who was at that moment lying a naked lifelesscorpse, under his very eyes. The officer had the presence of mind tosee that the corpse was not recognized, and, wishing to spare theother's feelings, told him that his brother was dangerously wounded, but that he would hear more of him by going out to the camp; andthither the other immediately bent his steps, with a seeming_presentiment_ of the sad intelligence that awaited him. April 9th. --As I had not seen my domestic since the storming of thetown, I concluded that he had been killed; but he turned up thismorning, with a tremendous gash on his head, and mounted on the top ofa horse nearly twenty feet high, carrying under his arm one of thoseglass cases which usually stand on the counters of jewellers' shops, filled with all manner of trinkets. He looked exactly like the ghostof a horse pedler. April 10th. --The devil take the man who stole my donkey last night. April 11th. --Marched again for the neighbourhood of Ciudad Rodrigo, with the long-accustomed sounds of cannon and musketry ringing in myfanciful ears as merrily as if the instruments themselves were stillplaying. Sir Sidney Beckwith, one of the fathers of the rifles, was, at thistime, obliged to proceed to England for the recovery of health, anddid not again return to the Peninsula. In his departure, that armylost one of the ablest of its outpost generals. Few officers knew sowell how to make the most of a small force. His courage, coupled withhis thorough knowledge of the soldier's character, was of that coolintrepid kind, that would, at any time, convert a routed rabble intoan orderly effective force. A better officer, probably, never led abrigade into the field! CHAP X. A Farewell Address to Portalegré. History of a Night in Castello Branco. Regimental Colours lost, with Directions where to find them. Cases in which a Victory is sometimes won by those who lost it. Advance to Salamanca. The City. The British Position on St. Christoval. Affair in Position. Marmont's Change of Position and Retreat. A Case of Bad Luck. Advance to Rueda, and Customs there. Retire to Castrejon. Affairs on the 18th and 19th of July. Battle of Salamanca, and Defeat of the Enemy. April 13th, 1812. --Quartered at Portalegré. DEAR PORTALEGRÉ! I cannot quit thee, for the fourth and last time, without a partingtribute to the remembrance of thy wild romantic scenery, and to thekindness and hospitality of thy worthy citizens! May thy gatescontinue shut to thine enemies as heretofore, and, as heretofore, maythey ever prove those of happiness to thy friends! Dear nuns of SantaClara! I thank thee for the enjoyment of many an hour of nothingness;and thine, Santa Barbara, for many of a more intellectual cast! Maythe voice of thy chapel-organ continue unrivalled but by the voices ofthy lovely choristers! and may the piano in thy refectory be replacedby a better, in which the harmony of strings may supersede theclattering of ivories! May the sweets which thou hast lavished on usbe showered upon thee ten thousand fold! And may those accursed ironbars divide thee as effectually from death as they did from us!!! April 15th. --Quartered at Castello Branco. This town had been so often visited by the French and us, alternately, that the inhabitants, at length, confounded their friends with theirfoes; and by treating both sides as enemies, they succeeded in makingthem so. When I went this evening to present my billet on a respectablelooking house, the door was opened by the lady of it, wearing a mostgingerly aspect. She told me, with an equivocal sort of look, that shehad two spare beds in the house, and that either of them were at myservice; and, by way of illustration, shewed me into a sort ofservant's room, off the kitchen, half full of apples, onions, potatoes, and various kinds of lumber, with a dirty looking bed in onecorner; and, on my requesting to see the other, she conducted me up tothe garret, into the very counterpart of the one below, though theroom was somewhat differently garnished. I told her, that they werecertainly two capital beds; but, as I was a modest person, anddisliked all extremes, that I should be quite satisfied with any oneon the floor which I had not yet seen. This, however, she told me, wasimpossible, as every one of them were required by her own family. While we were descending the stair, disputing the point, I caught thehandle of the first door that I came to, twisted it open, and seeingit a neat little room, with nothing but a table and two or threechairs, I told her that it would suit me perfectly; and, desiring herto have a good mattress with clean linen, laid in one corner of it, bynine o'clock; adding a few hints, to satisfy her that I was quite inearnest, I went to dine with my messmates. When I returned to the house, about ten o'clock, I was told that Ishould find a light in the room and my bed ready. I accordinglyascended, and found every thing as represented; and, in additionthereto, I found another bed lying alongside of mine, containing ahuge fat friar, with a bald pate, fast asleep, and blowing the mosttremendous nasal trumpet that I ever heard! As my _friend_ hadevidently been placed there for my annoyance, I did not think itnecessary to use much ceremony in getting rid of him; and, catchinghim by the two ears, I raised him up on his legs, while he groaned ina seeming agonized doubt, whether the pain was inflicted by a man or anight-mare; and before he had time to get himself broad awake, I hadchucked him and his clothing, bed and bedding, out at the door, which I locked, and enjoyed a sound sleep the remainder of the night. They offered me no further molestation; but, in taking my departure, at daylight, next morning, I observed my landlady reconnoitring mefrom an up-stairs window, and thought it prudent not to go too nearit. While we had been employed at Badajos, Marmont had advanced in thenorth, and blockaded Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, sending advancedparties into the frontier towns of Portugal, to the confusion andconsternation of the Portuguese militia, who had been stationed fortheir protection; and who, quite satisfied with the _report_ of theircoming, did not think it necessary to wait the report of their cannon. Marshal Beresford, in his paternal address to "_Los Valerossos_, " incommemoration of their conduct on this occasion, directed that thecolours of each regiment should be lodged in the town-halls of theirrespective districts, until they each provided themselves with _apair_ out of the ranks of the enemy; but I never heard that any ofthem were redeemed in the manner prescribed. The French retired upon Salamanca on our approach; and we resumed ourformer quarters without opposition. Hitherto we had been fighting the description of battle in which JohnBull glories so much--gaining a brilliant and useless victory againstgreat odds. But we were now about to contend for fame on equal terms;and, having tried both, I will say, without partiality, that I wouldrather fight one man than two any day; for I have never been quitesatisfied that the additional _quantum_ of glory altogethercompensated for the proportionate loss of substance; a victory of thatkind being a doubtful and most unsatisfactory one to the performers, with each occupying the same ground _after_, that they did _before_;and the whole merit resting with the side which did not happen tobegin it. We remained about two months in cantonments, to recover the effects ofthe late sieges; and as by that time all the perforated skins andrepairable cracked limbs had been mended, the army was assembled infront of Ciudad Rodrigo, to commence what may be termed the secondcampaign of 1812. The enemy retired from Salamanca on our approach, leaving garrisons inthree formidable little forts, which they had erected on the mostcommanding points of the city, and which were immediately invested bya British division. Salamanca, as a city, appeared to me to be more ancient thanrespectable; for, excepting an old cathedral and a new square, I sawnothing in it worth looking at, always saving and excepting theirpretty little girls, who (the deuce take them) cost me two nights goodsleep. For, by way of _doing a little dandy_ in passing through such acelebrated city, I disencumbered the under part of my saddle of theblanket, and the upper part of the boat-cloak with which it wasusually adorned; and the penalty which I paid for my gentility was, sleeping the next two nights in position two miles in front of thetown, while these useful appendages were lying on the baggage twomiles in rear of it. The heights of St. Christoval, which we occupied as a position tocover the siege, were strong, but quite unsheltered, and unfurnishedwith either wood or water. We were indebted for our supplies of thelatter to the citizens of Salamanca; while stubbles and dry grass wereour only fuel. Marmont came down upon us the first night with a thundering cannonade, and placed his army _en masse_ on the plain before us, almost withingun shot. I was told that, while Lord Wellington was riding along theline, under a fire of artillery, and accompanied by a numerous staff, that a brace of greyhounds, in pursuit of a hare, passed close to him. He was, at the moment, in earnest conversation with General Castanos;but the instant he observed them, he gave the view hallo, and wentafter them at full speed, to the utter astonishment of his foreignaccompaniments. Nor did he stop until he saw the hare killed; when hereturned, and resumed the commander-in-chief, as if nothing hadoccurred. The enemy, next morning, commenced a sharp attack on our advancedpost, in the village of Moresco; and, as it continued to be fed byboth sides, there was every appearance of its bringing on a generalaction; but they desisted towards the afternoon, and the villageremained divided between us. Marmont, after looking at us for several days, did not think itprudent to risk an attack on our present post; and, as thetelegraph-rockets from the town told him that his garrison was reducedto extremity, he crossed the Tormes, on the night of the 26th June, inthe hopes of being able to relieve them from that side of the river. Our division followed his movement, and took post, for the night, atAldea Lingua. They sent forward a strong reconnoitring party atdaylight next morning, but they were opposed by General Bock's brigadeof heavy German dragoons, who would not permit them to see more thanwas necessary; and, as the forts fell into our hands the same night, Marmont had no longer an object in remaining there, and fell back, behind the Douro, occupying the line of Toro and Torodesillas. By the accidental discharge of a musket, one day last year, the ramrodentered the belly, passed through the body, and the end of it stuck inthe back-bone of one of the soldiers of our division, from whence itwas actually hammered out with a stone. The poor fellow recovered, andjoined his regiment, as well as ever he had been, and was, last night, unfortunately drowned, while bathing in the Tormes. When the enemy retired, our division advanced and occupied Rueda, ahandsome little town, on the left bank of the Douro. It abounded in excellent wines, and our usual evening dances beganthere to be graced by a superior class of females to what they hadhitherto been accustomed. I remember that, in passing the house of thesexton, one evening, I saw his daughter baking a loaf of bread; and, falling desperately in love with both her and the loaf, I carried theone to the ball and the other to my quarters. A woman was a woman inthose days; and every officer made it a point of duty to marshal asmany as he could to the general assembly, no matter whether they werecountesses or _sextonesses_; and although we, in consequence, frequently incurred the most indelible disgrace among the betterorders of our indiscriminate collection, some of whom would retire indisgust; yet, as a sufficient number generally remained for ourevening's amusement, and we were only birds of passage, it was amatter of the most perfect indifference to us what they thought; wefollowed the same course wherever we went. The French army having, in the mean time, been largely reinforced;and, as they commanded the passage of the Douro, we were in hourlyexpectation of an offensive movement from them. As a precautionarymeasure, one-half of our division bivouacked, every night, in front ofthe town. On the evening of the 16th of July, it was our turn to bein quarters, and we were in the full enjoyment of our usual evening'samusement, when the bugles sounded to arms. As we had previously experienced two false alarms in the samequarters, we thought it more than probable that this might prove onealso; and, therefore, prevailed upon the ladies to enjoy themselves, until our return, upon the good things which we had provided for theirrefreshment, and out of which I hope they drew enough of consolationfor our absence, as we have not seen them since. After forming on our alarm-post, we were moved off, in the dark, weknew not whither; but every man following the one before him, with themost implicit confidence, until, after marching all night, we foundourselves, on the following morning, at daylight, near the village ofCastrejon, where we bivouacked for the day. I was sent on piquet on the evening of the 17th, to watch a portion ofthe plain before us; and, soon after sunrise on the following morning, a cannonade commenced, behind a hill, to my right; and, though thecombatants were not visible, it was evident that they were not dealingin blank-cartridge, as mine happened to be the pitching-post of allthe enemy's round shot. While I was attentively watching its progress, there arose, all at once, behind the rising ground to my left, a yellof the most terrific import; and, convinced that it would giveinstantaneous birth to as hideous a body, it made me look, with an eyeof lightning, at the ground around me; and, seeing a broad deep ditchwithin a hundred yards, I lost not a moment in placing it between mypiquet and the extraordinary sound, I had scarcely effected themovement, when Lord Wellington, with his staff, and a cloud of Frenchand English dragoons and horse artillery intermixed, came over thehill at full cry, and all hammering at each others' heads in oneconfused mass, over the very ground I had that instant quitted. Itappeared that his Lordship had gone there to reconnoitre, covered bytwo guns and two squadrons of cavalry, who, by some accident, weresurprised, and charged by a superior body of the enemy, and senttumbling in upon us in the manner described. A piquet of theforty-third had formed on our right, and we were obliged to remainpassive spectators of such an extraordinary scene going on within afew yards of us, as we could not fire without an equal chance ofshooting some of our own side. Lord Wellington and his staff, with thetwo guns, took shelter, for the moment, behind us, while the cavalrywent sweeping along our front, where, I suppose, they picked up somereinforcement, for they returned, almost instantly, in the sameconfused mass; but the French were now the flyers; and, I must do themthe justice to say, that they got off in a manner highly creditable tothemselves. I saw one, in particular, defending himself against two ofours; and he would have made his escape from both, but an officer ofour dragoons came down the hill, and took him in flank, at full speed, sending man and horse rolling, headlong, on the plain. I was highly interested, all this time, in observing thedistinguished characters which this unlooked-for _turn-up_ hadassembled around us. Marshal Beresford and the greater part of thestaff remained with their swords drawn, and the Duke himself did notlook more than half-pleased, while he silently despatched some of themwith orders. General Alten, and his huge German orderly dragoon, withtheir swords drawn, cursed, the whole time, to a very large amount;but, as it was in German, I had not the full benefit of it. He had anopposition swearer in Captain Jenkinson, of the artillery, whocommanded the two guns, and whose oaths were chiefly aimed at himselffor his folly, as far as I could understand, in putting so muchconfidence in his covering party, that he had not thought it necessaryto unfix the catch which horse-artillerymen, I believe, had to preventtheir swords quitting the scabbards when they are not wanted, andwhich, on this occasion, prevented their jumping forth when they wereso unexpectedly called for. The straggling enemy had scarcely cleared away from our front, whenLord Combermere came, from the right, with a reinforcement of cavalry;and our piquet was, at the same moment, ordered to join the battalion. The movements which followed presented the most beautiful militaryspectacle imaginable. The enemy were endeavouring to turn our left;and, in making a counteracting movement, the two armies were marchingin parallel lines, close to each other, on a perfect plain, each readyto take advantage of any opening of the other, and exchanging roundshot as they moved along. Our division brought up the rear of theinfantry, marching with the order and precision of a field-day, inopen column of companies, and in perfect readiness to receive theenemy in any shape; who, on their part, had a huge cavalry force closeat hand, and equally ready to pounce upon us. Our movement wassupported by a formidable body of our own dragoons; and, as we drewnear the bank of the small river Guerrena, our horse-artillerycontinued to file in the same line, to attract the attention of theenemy, while we gradually distanced them a little, and crossed theriver into a position on the high grounds beyond it. The enemy passedthe river, on our left, and endeavoured to force that part of theposition; but the troops who were stationed there drove them back, with great loss; and at dark the firing ceased. During the early part of the 19th there appeared to be no movements oneither side; but, in the afternoon, having fallen asleep in my tent, Iwas awoke by the whistling of a cannon shot; and was just beginning toabuse my servant for not having called me sooner, when we were orderedto stand to our arms; and, as the enemy were making a movement to ourright, we made a corresponding one. The cannonade did not cease untildark, when we lay down by our arms, the two armies very near to eachother, and fully expecting a general action on the morrow. July 20th. --We stood to our arms an hour before daylight, and LordWellington held out every inducement for his opponent to attack him;but Marmont evaded it, and continued his movement on our right, whichobliged us to continue ours, towards Salamanca; and we were a greatpart of this day in parallel lines with them, the same as on the 18th. July 21st. --We crossed the Tormes just before dark this evening, abouttwo miles above Salamanca, the enemy having passed it higher up. Before reaching our ground, we experienced one of the most tremendousthunderstorms that I ever witnessed. A sheet of lightning struck thehead of our column, where I happened to be riding, and deprived me ofthe use of my optics for at least ten minutes. A great many of ourdragoon horses broke from their piqueting during the storm, andgalloped past us into the French lines. We lay by our arms on thebanks of the river, and it continued to rain in torrents the whole ofthe night. BATTLE OF SALAMANCA. July 22d. --A sharp fire of musketry commenced at day light in themorning; but, as it did not immediately concern us, and was nothingunusual, we took no notice of it; but busied ourselves in getting ourarms and our bodies disengaged from the rust and the wet, engenderedby the storm of the past night. About ten o'clock, our division was ordered to stand to their arms, and then moved into position, with our left resting on the Tormes, andour right extending along a ridge of rising ground, thinlyinterspersed with trees, beyond which the other divisions were formedin continuation, with the exception of the third, which still remainedon the opposite bank of the river. The enemy were to be seen in motion on the opposite ridges, and astraggling fire of musketry, with an occasional gun, acted as a sortof prelude to the approaching conflict. We heard, about this time, that Marmont had just sent to his _ci-devant_ landlord, in Salamanca, to desire that he would have the usual dinner ready for himself andstaff at six o'clock; and so satisfied was "mine host" of theinfallibility of the French Marshal, that he absolutely set aboutmaking the necessary preparations. There assuredly never was an army so anxious as ours was to be broughtinto action on this occasion. They were a magnificent body ofwell-tried soldiers, highly equipped, and in the highest health andspirits, with the most devoted confidence in their leader, and aninvincible confidence in themselves. The retreat of the four precedingdays had annoyed us beyond measure, for we believed that we werenearly equal to the enemy in point of numbers; and the idea of ourretiring before an equal number of any troops in the world was not tobe endured with common patience. We were kept the whole of the forenoon in the most torturing state ofsuspense through contradictory reports. One passing officer tellingus that he had just heard the order given to attack, and the nextasserting, with equal confidence, that he had just heard the order toretreat; and it was not until about two o'clock in the afternoon, thataffairs began to wear a more decided aspect; and when our own eyes andears at length conveyed the wished-for tidings that a battle wasinevitable; for we saw the enemy beginning to close upon our right, and the cannonade had become general along the whole line. LordWellington, about the same time, ordered the movement which decidedthe fate of the day--that of bringing the third division, from beyondthe river on our left, rapidly to our extreme right, turning theenemy, in their attempt to turn us, and commencing the offensive withthe whole of his right wing. The effect was instantaneous anddecisive, for although some obstinate and desperate fighting tookplace in the centre, with various success, yet the victory was neverfor a moment in doubt; and the enemy were soon in full retreat, leaving seven thousand prisoners, two eagles, and eleven pieces ofartillery in our hands. Had we been favoured with two hours moredaylight, their loss would have been incalculable, for they committeda blunder at starting, which they never got time to retrieve; and, their retreat was, therefore, commenced in such disorder, and with ariver in their rear, that nothing but darkness could have saved them. CHAP. XI. Distinguished Characters. A Charge of Dragoons. A Charge against the Nature of Things. Olmeda and the French General, Ferez. Advance towards Madrid. Adventures of my Dinner. The Town of Segovia. El Palacio del Rio Frio. The Escurial. Enter Madrid. Rejoicings. Nearly happy. Change of a Horse. Change of Quarters. A Change confounded. Retire towards Salamanca. Boar-Hunt, Dinner-Hunt, and Bull-Hunt. A Portuguese Funeral conducted by Rifle Undertakers. The third division, under Sir Edward Pakenham, the artillery, and someregiments of dragoons, particularly distinguished themselves. But ourdivision, very much to our annoyance, came in for a very slenderportion of this day's glory. We were exposed to a cannonade the wholeof the afternoon; but, as we were not permitted to advance until verylate, we had only an opportunity of throwing a few straggling shot atthe fugitives, before we lost sight of them in the dark; and thenbivouacked for the night near the village of Huerta, (I think it wascalled). We started after them at daylight next morning; and, crossing at aford of the Tormes, we found their rear-guard, consisting of threeregiments of infantry, with some cavalry and artillery, posted on aformidable height above the village of Serna. General Bock, with hisbrigade of heavy German dragoons, immediately went at them; and, putting their cavalry to flight, he broke through their infantry, andtook or destroyed the whole of them. This was one of the most gallantcharges recorded in history. I saw many of these fine fellows lyingdead along with their horses, on which they were still astride, withthe sword firmly grasped in the hand, as they had fought the instantbefore; and several of them still wearing a look of fierce defiance, which death itself had been unable to quench. We halted for the night at a village near Penaranda. I took possessionof the church; and finding the floor strewed with the paraphernalia ofpriesthood, I selected some silk gowns, and other gorgeous trappings, with which I made a bed for myself in the porch, and where, "if allhad been gold that glittered, " I should have looked a jewel indeed;but it is lamentable to think, that, among the multifarious blessingswe enjoy in this life, we should never be able to get a dish of gloryand a dish of beef-steak on the same day; in consequence of which, theheart, which ought properly to be soaring in the clouds, or, at allevents, in a castle half way up, is more generally to be foundgrovelling about a hen-roost, in the vain hope, that, if it cannot gethold of the hen herself, it may at least hit upon an egg; and such, Iremember, was the state of my feelings on this occasion, inconsequence of my having dined the three preceding days on the half ofmy inclinations. We halted the next night in the handsome little town of Olmeda, whichhad just been evacuated by the enemy. The French General, Ferez, diedthere, in consequence of the wounds which he received at the battle ofSalamanca, and his remains had, the night before, been consigned tothe earth, with the highest honours, and a canopy of laurel placedover his grave: but the French had no sooner left the town, than theinhabitants exhumed the body, cut off the head, and spurned it withthe greatest indignity. They were in hopes that this line of conductwould have proved a passport to our affections, and conducted us tothe spot, as to a trophy that they were proud of; but we expressed themost unfeigned horror and indignation at their proceeding; and, getting some soldiers to assist us, we carefully and respectfullyreplaced his remains in the grave. His _was_ a noble head; and even indeath, it looked the brave, the gallant soldier. Our conduct had suchan effect on the Spaniards, that they brought back the canopy, oftheir own accord, and promised, solemnly, that the grave should, henceforth, rest undisturbed. July 26th. --We arrived on the banks of the Douro, within a league ofValladolid, where we halted two days; and Lord Wellington, detaching adivision of infantry and some cavalry to watch the movements of thedefeated army, proceeded with the remainder of us towards Madrid. August 1st. --On approaching near to our bivouac this afternoon, I sawa good large farm-house, about a mile off the road; and, gettingpermission from my commandant, I made a cast thereto, in search ofsomething for dinner. There were two women belonging to the GermanLegion, smoking their pipes in the kitchen, when I arrived; and, having the highest respect for their marauding qualifications, I beganto fear that nothing was to be had, as they were sitting there soquietly. I succeeded, however, in purchasing two pair of chickens;and, neglecting the precaution of unscrewing their necks, I grasped ahandful of their legs, and, mounting my horse, proceeded towards thecamp; but I had scarcely gone a couple of hundred yards, when theybegan opening their throats and flapping with their wings, whichstartled my horse and sent him off at full speed. I lost the rein onone side, and, in attempting to pull him up with the other, I broughthis foot into a rut, and down he came, sending me head-foremost into awet ditch! When I got on my legs, and shook myself a little, I saweach particular hen galloping across the field, screeching with allits might, while the horse was off in a different direction; and, casting a rueful look at the chickens, I naturally followed him, asthe most valuable of the collection. Fortunately, a heavy boat-cloakcaused the saddle to roll under his belly; and finding that he couldnot make way in consequence, he quietly waited for me about a quarterof a mile off. When I had remounted, I looked back to the scene of mydisaster, and saw my two German _friends_ busily employed in catchingthe chickens. I rode towards them, and they were, no doubt, in hopesthat I had broken my neck, that they might have the sacking of me, also; for, as I approached, I observed them concealing the fowls undertheir clothes, while the one took up a position behind the other. After reconnoitring them a short time, I rode up and demanded thefowls, when the one looked at the other, and, in well-feignedastonishment, asked, in _Dutch_, what I could possibly mean? then gaveme to understand that they could not comprehend English; but Iimmediately said, "Come, come! none of your gammon; you have got myfowls, here's half a dollar for your trouble in catching them, so handthem out. " "Oh!" said one of them, in English, "it is de fowl youwant, " and they then produced them. After paying them the stipulatedsum, I wished them all the compliments of the season, and thoughtmyself fortunate in getting off so well; for they were each six feethigh, and as strong as a horse, and I felt convinced that they hadoften thrashed a better man than myself in the course of theirmilitary career. August 7th. --Halted near the ancient town of Segovia, which bears astrong resemblance to the old town of Edinburgh, built on a loftyridge, that terminates in an abrupt summit, on which stands thefortified tower, celebrated in the Adventures of Gil Blas. It is afine old town, boasts of a superb Roman aqueduct, and is famous forladies' shoes. Our bivouac, this evening, was on the banks of El Rio Frio, near to anew hunting-palace of the King of Spain. It was a large quadrangularbuilding, each side full of empty rooms, with nothing but their youthto recommend them. On the 9th, we crossed the Guadarama mountains, and halted, for thenight, in the park of the Escurial. I had, from childhood upwards, considered this palace as the eighthwonder of the world, and was, therefore, proportionately disappointedat finding it a huge, gloomy, unmeaning pile of building, lookingsomewhat less interesting than the wild craggy mountain opposite, andwithout containing a single room large enough to flog a cat in. Theonly apartment that I saw worth looking at was the one in which their_dead kings live_! ENTERED MADRID, August 13th, 1812. As we approached the capital, imagination was busy in speculating onthe probable nature of our reception. The peasantry, with whom we hadhitherto been chiefly associated, had imbibed a rooted hatred to theFrench, caused by the wanton cruelties experienced at their hands, both in their persons and their property; otherwise they were acheerful, hospitable, and orderly people, and, had they been permittedto live in peace and quietness, it was a matter of the most perfectindifference to them whether Joseph, Ferdinand, or the ghost of DonQuixotte was their king. But the citizens of Madrid had been livingfour years in comparative peace, under the dominion of a Frenchgovernment, and in the enjoyment of all the gaieties of thatluxurious court; to which, if I add that we entertained, at that time, some slight jealousy regarding the pretensions of the French officersto the favours of the fair, I believe the prevailing opinion was that_we_ should be considered as the intruders. It was, therefore, amatter of the most unexpected exultation, when we entered it, on theafternoon of the 13th of August, to find ourselves hailed asliberators, with the most joyous acclamations, by surroundingmultitudes, who continued their rejoicings for three successive days. By day, the riches of each house were employed in decorations to itsexterior; and, by night, they were brilliantly illuminated, duringwhich time all business was suspended, and the whole population of thecity crowded the streets, emulating each other in heaping honours andcaresses upon us. King Joseph had retired on our approach, leaving a garrison in thefortified palace of El Retiro; but they surrendered some daysafterwards, and we remained there for three months, basking in thesunshine of beauty, harmony, and peace. I shall ever look back to thatperiod as the most pleasing event of my military life. The only bar to our perfect felicity was the want of money, as, independent of long arrears, already due, the military chest continuedso very poor that it could not afford to give us more than afortnight's pay during these three months; and, as nobody could, would, or should give cash for bills, we were obliged to sell silverspoons, watches, and every thing of value that we stood possessed of, to purchase the common necessaries of life. My Irish _criado_, who used to take uncommon liberties with myproperty, having been two or three days in the rear, with the baggage, at the time of the battle of Salamanca, took upon himself to exchangemy baggage-horse for another; and his apology for so doing was, thatthe one he had got was twice as big as the one he gave! The additionalsize, however, so far from being an advantage, proved quite thereverse; for I found that he could eat as much as he could carry, and, as he was obliged to carry all that he had to eat, I was forcedto put him on half allowance, to make room for my baggage; inconsequence of which, every bone in his body soon became so _pointed_that I could easily have hung my hat on any part of his hind quarters. I therefore took advantage of our present repose to let him have thebenefit of a full allowance, that enabled me to effect an exchangebetween him and a mule, getting five dollars to the bargain, whichmade me one of the happiest and, I believe, also, one of the richestmen in the army. I expended the first dollar next day, in gettingadmission to a bullfight, in their national amphitheatre, where thefirst thing that met my astonished eyes was a mad bull giving thefinishing _prode_ to my unfortunate big horse. Lord Wellington, with some divisions of the army, proceeded, about thebeginning of September, to undertake the siege of Burgos, leavingthose at Madrid, under the orders of Sir Rowland Hill, so that, towards the end of October, our delightful sojourn there drewperceptibly to a close, for it was known that King Joseph, with theforces under Soult and Jourdan, now united, were moving upon Aranjuez, and that all, excepting our own division, were already in motion, todispute the passage of the Tagus, and to cover the capital. About fouro'clock on the morning of the 23d of October, we received orders to beon our alarm-posts at six, and, as soon as we had formed, we weremarched to the city of Alcala. October 27th. --We were all this day marching to Arganda, and all nightmarching back again. If any one thing is more particularly damned thananother it is a march of this kind. October 30th--An order arrived, from Lord Wellington, for our corps ofthe army to fall back upon Salamanca; we, therefore, returned toMadrid, and, after halting outside the gates until we were joined bySkerret's division, from Cadiz, we bade a last sorrowful adieu to ourfriends in the city, and commenced our retreat. October 31st. --Halted for the night in the park of the Escurial. It isamusing, on a division's first taking up its ground, to see thenumbers of hares that are, every instant, starting up among the men, and the scrambling and shouting of the soldiers for the prize. Thisday, when the usual shout was given, every man ran, with his cap inhis hand, to endeavour to capture poor _puss_, as he imagined, butwhich turned out to be two wild boars, who contrived to make room forthemselves so long as there was nothing but men's caps to contendwith; but they very soon had as many bayonets as bristles in theirbacks. We re-crossed the Guadarama mountains next morning. November 2d. --Halted, this night, in front of a small town, the nameof which I do not recollect. It was beginning to get dark by the timeI had posted our guards and piquets, when I rode into it, to endeavourto find my messmates, who, I knew, had got a dinner waiting for mesomewhere. I entered a large square, or market-place, and found it crowded withsoldiers of all nations, most of them three-parts drunk, and in themidst of whom a mad bull was performing the most extraordinary feats, quite unnoticed, excepting by those who had the misfortune to attracthis attention. The first intimation that I had of him was his chargingpast me, and making a thrust at our quarter-master, carrying off aportion of his regimental trousers. He next got a fair toss at aPortuguese soldier, and sent him spinning three or four turns up inthe air. I was highly amused in observing the fellow's astonishmentwhen he alighted, to see that he had not the remotest idea to whataccident he was indebted for such an evolution, although he seemedfully prepared to quarrel with any one who chose to acknowledge anyparticipation in the deed; but the cause of it was, all the time, finding fresh customers, and, making the grand tour of the square withsuch velocity, I began to fear that I should soon be on his list also, if I did not take shelter in the nearest house, a measure no soonerthought of than executed. I, therefore, opened a door, and drove myhorse in before me; but there instantly arose such an uproar within, that I began to wish myself once more on the outside on any terms, forit happened to be occupied by English, Portuguese, and Germanbullock-drivers, who had been seated round a table, scrambling for adinner, when my horse upset the table, lights, and every thing on it. The only thing that I could make out amid their confused curses was, that they had come to the determination of putting the cause of therow to death; but, as I begged to differ with them on that point, Itook the liberty of knocking one or two of them down, and finallysucceeded in extricating my horse, with whom I retraced my way to thecamp, weary, angry, and hungry. On my arrival there, I found anorderly waiting to show me the way to dinner, which once more restoredme to good humour with myself and all the world; while the adventureafforded my companions a hearty laugh, at my expense. November 6th. --In the course of this day's march, while our battalionformed the rear-guard, at a considerable distance in the rear of thecolumn, we found a Portuguese soldier, who had been left by hisregiment, lying in the middle of the road, apparently dead; but, onexamining him more closely, we had reason to think that he was merelyin a state of stupor, arising from fatigue and the heat of theweather, --an opinion which caused us no little uneasiness. Although wedid not think it quite fair to bury a living man, yet we had no meanswhatever of carrying him off; and to leave him where he was, would, inall probability, have cost us a number of better lives than his hadever been, for the French, who were then in sight, had hitherto beenfollowing us at a very respectable distance; and, had they found thatwe were retiring in such a hurry as to leave our half-dead people onthe road, they would not have been Frenchmen if they did not give usan extra push, to help us along. Under all the circumstances of thecase, therefore, although our doctor was of opinion that, with timeand attention, he might recover, and not having either the one or theother to spare, the remainder of us, who had voted ourselves into asort of board of survey, thought it most prudent to find him dead;and, carrying him a little off the road to the edge of a ravine, wescraped a hole in the sand with our swords, and placed him in it. Wecovered him but very lightly, and left his head and arms at perfectliberty; so that, although he might be said to have had both feet inthe grave, yet he might still have scrambled out of it, if he could. CHAP. XII. Reach Salamanca. Retreat from it. Pig Hunting, an Enemy to Sleep-Hunting. Putting one's Foot in it. Affair on the 17th of November. Bad Legs sometimes last longer than good ones. A Wet Birth. Prospectus of a Day's Work. A lost _déjûné_ better than a found one. Advantages not taken. A disagreeable Amusement. End of the Campaign of 1812. Winter Quarters. Orders and Disorders treated. Farewell Opinion of Ancient Allies. My House. November 7th. --Halted this night at Alba de Tormes, and next daymarched into quarters in Salamanca, where we rejoined Lord Wellingtonwith the army from Burgos. On the 14th, the British army concentrated on the field of theirformer glory, in consequence of a part of the French army havingeffected the passage of the river, above Alba de Tormes. On the 15th, the whole of the enemy's force having passed the river, a cannonadecommenced early in the day; and it was the general belief that, erenight, a second battle of Salamanca would be recorded. But, as all theFrench armies in Spain were now united in our front, and out-numberedus so far, Lord Wellington, seeing no decided advantage to be gainedby risking a battle, at length ordered a retreat, which we commencedabout three in the afternoon. Our division halted for the night at theentrance of a forest about four miles from Salamanca. The heavy rains which usually precede the Spanish winter had set inthe day before; and, as the roads in that part of the country cease tobe roads for the remainder of the season, we were now walking nearlyknee deep, in a stiff mud, into which no man could thrust his foot, with the certainty of having a shoe at the end of it when he pulled itout again; and, that we might not be miserable by halves, we had, thisevening, to regale our chops with the last morsel of biscuit thatthey were destined to grind during the retreat. We cut some boughs of trees to keep us out of the mud, and lay down tosleep on them, wet to the skin; but the cannonade of the afternoon hadbeen succeeded, after dark, by a continued firing of musketry, whichled us to believe that our piquets were attacked, and, in momentaryexpectation of an order to stand to our arms, we kept ourselves awakethe whole night, and were not a little provoked when we found, nextmorning, that it had been occasioned by numerous stragglers from thedifferent regiments, shooting at the pigs belonging to the peasantrywhich were grazing in the wood. November 16th. --Retiring from daylight until dark through the samedescription of roads. The French dragoons kept close behind, but didnot attempt to molest us. It still continued to rain hard, and weagain passed the night in a wood. I was very industriously employed, during the early part of it, feeling, in the dark, for acorns, as asubstitute for bread. November 17th. --At daylight this morning the enemy's cavalry advancedin force; but they were kept in check by the skirmishers of the 14thlight dragoons, until the road became open, when we continued ourretreat. Our brigade-major was at this time obliged to go to the rear, sick, and I was appointed to act for him. We were much surprised, in the course of the forenoon, to hear a sharpfiring commence behind us, on the very road by which we were retiring;and it was not until we reached the spot that we learnt that thetroops who were retreating, by a road parallel to ours, had left ittoo soon, and enabled some French dragoons, under cover of the forest, to advance unperceived to the flank of our line of march, who, seeingan interval between two divisions of infantry, which was filled withlight baggage and some passing officers, dashed at it, and made someprisoners in the scramble of the moment, amongst whom wasLieutenant-General Sir Edward Paget. Our division formed on the heights above Samunoz to cover the passageof the rivulet, which was so swollen with the heavy rains, as only tobe passable at particular fords. While we waited there for the passageof the rest of the army, the enemy, under cover of the forest, was, atthe same time, assembling in force close around us; and the momentthat we began to descend the hill, towards the rivulet, we wereassailed by a heavy fire of cannon and musketry, while their powerfulcavalry were in readiness to take advantage of any confusion whichmight have occurred. We effected the passage, however, in excellentorder, and formed on the opposite bank of the stream, where wecontinued under a cannonade and engaged in a sharp skirmish untildark. Our loss on this occasion was considerable, but it would have beenmuch greater, had not the enemy's shells buried themselves so deep inthe soft ground, that their explosions did little injury. It appearedsingular to us, who were not medical men, that an officer and severalof our division, who were badly wounded on this occasion, in the leg, and who were sent to the rear on gun-carriages, should have died of amortification in the limb which was _not_ wounded. When the firing ceased, we received the usual order "to make ourselvescomfortable for the night, " and I never remember an instance in whichwe had so much difficulty in obeying it; for the ground we occupiedwas a perfect flat, which was flooded more than ankle deep with water, excepting here and there, where the higher ground around the roots oftrees, presented circles of a few feet of visible earth, upon which wegrouped ourselves. Some few fires were kindled, at which we roastedsome bits of raw beef on the points of our swords, and eat them by wayof a dinner. There was plenty of water to apologize for the want ofbetter fluids, but bread sent no apology at all. Some divisions of the army had commenced retiring as soon as it wasdark, and the whole had been ordered to move, so that the roads mightbe clear for us before daylight. I was sent twice in the course of thenight to see what progress they had made; but such was the state ofthe roads, that even within an hour of daylight, two divisions, besides our own, were still unmoved, which would consequently delay usso long, that we looked forward to a severe harassing day's fighting;a kind of fighting, too, that is the least palatable of any, wheremuch might be lost, and nothing was to be gained. With such prospectsbefore us, it made my very heart rejoice to see my brigadier's servantcommence boiling some chocolate and frying a beef-steak. I watched itsprogress with a keenness which intense hunger alone could inspire, andwas on the very point of having my desires consummated, when thegeneral, getting uneasy at not having received any communicationrelative to the movements of the morning, and, without considering howfeelingly my stomach yearned for a better acquaintance with thecontents of his frying-pan, desired me to ride to General Alten fororders. I found the general at a neighbouring tree; but he cut off allhopes of my timely return, by desiring me to remain with him until hereceived the report of an officer whom he had sent to ascertain theprogress of the other divisions. While I was toasting myself at his fire, so sharply set that I couldhave eaten one of my boots, I observed his German orderly dragoon, atan adjoining fire, stirring up the contents of a camp-kettle, thatonce more revived my departing hopes, and I presently had thesatisfaction of seeing him dipping in some basins, presenting one tothe general, one to the aide-de-camp, and a third to myself. The messwhich it contained I found, after swallowing the whole at a draught, was neither more nor less than the produce of a piece of beef boiledin plain water; and, though it would have been enough to havephysicked a dromedary at any other time, yet, as I could then havemade a good hole in the dromedary himself, it sufficiently satisfiedmy cravings to make me equal to any thing for the remainder of theday. We were soon after ordered to stand to our arms, and, as day lit up, athick haze hung on the opposite hills, which prevented our seeing theenemy; and, as they did not attempt to feel for us, we, contrary toour expectations, commenced our retreat unmolested; nor could we quitebelieve our good fortune when, towards the afternoon, we had passedseveral places where they could have assailed us, in flank, with greatadvantage, and caused us a severe loss, almost in spite of fate; butit afterwards appeared that they were quite knocked up with theirexertions in overtaking us the day before, and were unable to followfurther. We halted on a swampy height, behind St. Espiritu, andexperienced another night of starvation and rain. I now felt considerably more for my horse than myself, as he had beenthree days and nights without a morsel of any kind to eat. Ourbaggage-animals, too, we knew were equally ill off, and, as theyalways preceded us a day's march, it was highly amusing, whenever wefound a dead horse, or a mule, lying on the road-side, to see theanxiety with which every officer went up to reconnoitre him, eachfearing that he should have the misfortune to recognize it as his own. On the 19th of November we arrived at the convent of Caridad, nearCiudad Rodrigo, and once more experienced the comforts of our baggageand provisions. My boots had not been off since the 13th, and I foundit necessary to cut them to pieces, to get my swollen feet out ofthem. This retreat terminated the campaign of 1812. After a few days' delay, and some requisite changes about the neighbourhood, while all theworld were getting shook into their places, our battalion finally tookpossession of the village of Alameida for the winter, where, afterforming a regimental mess, we detached an officer to Lamego, andsecured to ourselves a bountiful supply of the best juice of thegrape which the neighbouring banks of the Douro afforded. The quarterwe now occupied was naturally pretty much upon a par with those of thelast two winters, but it had the usual advantages attending the marchof intellect. The officers of the division united in fitting up anempty chapel, in the village of Galegos, as an amateur theatre, forwhich, by the by, we were all regularly cursed, from the altar, by thebishop of Rodrigo. Lord Wellington kept a pack of foxhounds, and theHon. Captain Stewart, of ours, a pack of harriers, so that these, inaddition to our old _Bolero_ meetings, enabled us to pass a verytolerable winter. The neighbouring plains abounded with hares; it was one of the mostbeautiful coursing countries, perhaps, in the world; and there was, also, some shooting to be had at the numerous vultures preying on thedead carcasses which strewed the road-side on the line of our lastretreat. Up to this period Lord Wellington had been adored by the army, inconsideration of his brilliant achievements, and for his noble andmanly bearing in all things; but, in consequence of some disgracefulirregularities which took place during the retreat, he immediatelyafter issued an order, conveying a sweeping censure on the whole army. His general conduct was too upright for even the finger of maliceitself to point at; but as his censure, on this occasion, was notstrictly confined to the guilty, it afforded a handle to disappointedpersons, and excited a feeling against him, on the part ofindividuals, which has probably never since been obliterated. It began by telling us that we had suffered no privations; and, thoughthis was hard to be digested on an empty stomach, yet, taking it inits more liberal meaning, that our privations were not of an extent tojustify any irregularities, which I readily admit; still, as manyregiments were not guilty of any irregularities, it is not to bewondered if such should have felt, at first, a little sulky to find, in the general reproof, that no loop-hole whatever had been left forthem to creep through; for, I believe I am justified in saying thatneither our own, nor the two gallant corps associated with us, had asingle man absent that we could not satisfactorily account for. But ittouched us still more tenderly in not excepting us from his generalcharge of inexpertness in camp arrangements; for, it was _our belief_, and in which we were in some measure borne out by circumstances, that, had he placed us, at the same moment, in the same field, with an equalnumber of the best troops in France, that he would not only have seenour fires as quickly lit, but every Frenchman roasting on them to thebargain, if they waited long enough to be _dressed_; for there, perhaps, never was, nor ever again will be, such a war-brigade as thatwhich was composed of the forty-third, fifty-second, and the rifles. That not only censure, but condign punishment was merited, in manyinstances, is certain; and, had his lordship dismissed some officersfrom the service, and caused some of the disorderly soldiers to beshot, it would not only have been an act of justice, but, probably, anecessary example. Had he hanged every commissary, too, who failed toissue the regular rations to the troops dependent on him, unless theyproved that they were starved themselves, it would only have been ajust sacrifice to the offended stomachs of many thousands of gallantfellows. In our brigade, I can safely say, that the order in question excited"more of sorrow than of anger;" we thought that, had it been_particular_, it would have been just; but, as it was _general_, thatit was inconsiderate; and we, therefore, regretted that he who hadbeen, and still was, the god of our idolatry, should thereby have laidhimself open to the attacks of the ill-natured. Alameida is a Spanish village, situated within a stone's throw of theboundary-line of the sister-kingdom; and, as the head-quarters of thearmy, as well as the nearest towns, from whence we drew our supplies, lay in Portugal, our connexions, while we remained there, were chieflywith the latter kingdom; and, having passed the three last winters ontheir frontier, we, in the month of May, 1813, prepared to bid it afinal adieu, with very little regret. The people were kind andhospitable, and not destitute of intelligence; but, somehow, theyappeared to be the creatures of a former age, and showed an indolenceand want of enterprise which marked them born for slaves; and, although the two cacadore regiments attached to our division were, atall times, in the highest order, and conducted themselves gallantly inthe field, yet, I am of opinion that, as a nation, they owe theircharacter for bravery almost entirely to the activity and gallantry ofthe British officers who organized and led them. The veriest cowardsin existence must have shown the same front under such discipline. Idid not see enough of their gentry to enable me to form an opinionabout them; but the middling and lower orders are extremely filthyboth in their persons and in their houses, and they have all anintolerable itch for gambling. The soldiers, though fainting withfatigue on the line of march, invariably group themselves incard-parties whenever they are allowed a few minutes' halt; and anon-commissioned officer, with half-a-dozen men on any duty offatigue, are very generally to be seen as follows, viz. One man as asentry, to watch the approach of the superintending officer, one manat work, and the non-commissioned officer, with the other four, atcards. The cottages in Alameida, and, indeed, in all the Spanish villages, generally contain two mud-floored apartments: the outer one, thoughmore cleanly than the Irish, is, nevertheless, fashioned after thesame manner, and is common alike to the pigs and the people; while theinner looks more like the gun-room of a ship-of-war, having asitting-apartment in the centre, with small sleeping-cabins branchingfrom it, each illuminated by a port-hole, about a foot square. We didnot see daylight "through a glass darkly, " as on London'sLudgate-hill, for there the air circulated freely, and mild it came, and pure, and fragrant, as if it had just stolen over a bed of roses. If a man did not like _that_, he had only to shut his port, and remainin darkness, inhaling his own preferred sweetness! The outside of mysleeping-cabin was interwoven with ivy and honeysuckle, and, among thebranches, a nightingale had established itself, and sung sweetly, night after night, during the whole of the winter. I could not partfrom such a pleasing companion, and from a bed in which I had enjoyedso many tranquil slumbers, without a sigh, though I was ungratefulenough to accompany it with a fervent wish that I might never see themagain; for I looked upon the period that I had spent there as so muchtime lost. CHAP. XIII. A Review. Assembly of the Army. March to Salamanca. To Aldea Nueva. To Toro. An Affair of the Hussar Brigade. To Palencia. To the Neighbourhood of Burgos. To the Banks of the Ebro. Fruitful sleeping place. To Medina. A Dance before it was due. Smell the Foe. Affair at St. Milan. A Physical River. May, 1813. --In the early part of this month our division was reviewedby Lord Wellington, preparatory to the commencement of anothercampaign; and I certainly never saw a body of troops in a morehighly-efficient state. It did one's very heart good to look at ourbattalion that day, seeing each company standing a hundred strong, andthe intelligence of several campaigns stamped on each daring, bronzedcountenance, which looked you boldly in the face, in the fullness ofvigour and confidence, as if it cared neither for man nor devil. On the 21st of May, our division broke up from winter-quarters, andassembled in front of Ciudad Rodrigo, with all excepting the left wingof the army, which, under Sir Thomas Graham, had already passed theDouro, and was ascending its right bank. An army which has seen some campaigns in the field, affords a greatdeal of amusement in its assembling after winter-quarters. There isnot only the greeting of long-parted friends and acquaintances in thesame walks of life, but, among the different divisions which thenature of the service generally threw a good deal together, there wasnot so much as a mule or a donkey that was not known to eachindividual, and its absence noticed; nor a scamp of a boy, or a commonPortuguese trull, who was not as particularly inquired after, as ifthe fate of the campaign depended on their presence. On the 22d, we advanced towards Salamanca, and, the next day, haltedat Samunoz, on our late field of action. With what different feelingsdid we now view the same spot! In our last visit, winter was on theface of the land, as well as on our minds; we were worn out withfatigue, mortification, and starvation; now, all was summer andsunshine. The dismal swamps had now become verdant meadows; we hadplenty in the camp, vigour in our limbs, and hope in our bosoms. We were, this day, joined by the household brigade of cavalry fromEngland; and, as there was a report in the morning that the enemy werein the neighbourhood, some of the life-guards concluded that everything in front of their camp must be a part of them, and they, accordingly, apprehended some of the light dragoon horses, whichhappened to be grazing near. One of their officers came to dine withme that day, and he was in the act of reporting their capture, when myorderly-book was brought at the moment, containing an offer of rewardfor the detection of the thieves! On the 27th, we encamped on the banks of the Tormes, at a ford, abouta league below Salamanca. A body of the enemy, who had occupied thecity, suffered severely before they got away, in a brush with somepart of Sir Rowland Hill's corps; chiefly, I believe, from some of hisartillery. On the 28th, we crossed the river, and marched near to Aldea Nueva, where we remained stationary for some days, under Sir Rowland Hill;Lord Wellington having proceeded from Salamanca to join the left wingof the army, beyond the Douro. On the 2d of June, we were again put in motion; and, after a very longmarch, encamped near the Douro, opposite the town of Toro. Lord Wellington had arrived there the day before, without beingopposed by the enemy; but there had been an affair of cavalry, a shortdistance beyond the town, in which the hussar brigade particularlydistinguished themselves, and took about three hundred prisoners. On the morning of the 3d, we crossed the river; and, marching throughthe town of Toro, encamped about half a league beyond it. The enemyhad put the castle in a state of repair, and constructed a number ofother works to defend the passage of the river; but the masterly eyeof our chief, having seen his way round the town, spared them thetrouble of occupying the works; yet, loth to think that so much labourshould be altogether lost, he garrisoned their castle with the threehundred taken by the hussar brigade, for which it made a very goodjail. On the 4th, we were again in motion, and had a long, warm, fatiguingmarch; as, also, on the 5th and 6th. On the 7th, we encamped outsideof Palencia, a large rickety looking old town; with the front of everyhouse supported by pillars, like so many worn out old bachelors oncrutches. The French did not interfere with our accommodation in the slightest, but made it a point to leave every place an hour or two before we cameto it; so that we quietly continued our daily course, following nearlythe line of the Canal de Castile, through a country luxuriant incorn-fields and vineyards, until the 12th, when we arrived within twoor three leagues of Burgos, (on its left, ) and where we found a bodyof the enemy in position, whom we immediately proceeded to attack; butthey evaporated on our approach, and fell back upon Burgos. Weencamped for the night on the banks of a river, a short distance tothe rear. Next morning, at daylight, an explosion shook the groundlike an earthquake, and made every man jump upon his legs; and it wasnot until some hours after, when Lord Wellington returned fromreconnoitring, that we learnt that the castle of Burgos had been justblown up, and the town evacuated by the enemy. We continued our march on the 13th, through a very rich country. On the 14th, we had a long harassing day's march, through a ruggedmountainous country, which afforded only an occasional glimpse offertility, in some pretty little valleys with which it wasintersected. We started at daylight on the 15th, through a dreary region of solidrock, bearing an abundant crop of loose stones, without a particle ofsoil or vegetation visible to the naked eye in any direction. Afterleaving nearly twenty miles of this horrible wilderness behind us, ourweary minds clogged with an imaginary view of nearly as much more ofit in our front, we found ourselves, all at once, looking down uponthe valley of the Ebro, near the village of Arenas, one of therichest, loveliest, and most romantic spots that I ever beheld. Theinfluence of such a scene on the mind can scarcely be believed. Fiveminutes before we were all as _lively_ as stones. In a moment we wereall fruits and flowers; and many a pair of legs, that one would havethought had not a kick left in them, were, in five minutes after, seendancing across the bridge, to the tune of "the downfal of Paris, "which struck up from the bands of the different regiments. I lay down that night in a cottage garden, with my head on a melon, and my eye on a cherry-tree, and resigned myself to a repose whichdid not require a long courtship. We resumed our march at daybreak on the 16th. The road, in the firstinstance, wound through orchards and luxurious gardens, and thenclosed in to the edge of the river, through a difficult and formidablepass, where the rocks on each side, arising to a prodigious height, hung over each other in fearful grandeur, and in many places nearlymet together over our heads. After following the course of the river for nearly two miles, therocks on each side gradually expanded into another valley, lovely asthe one we had left, and where we found the fifth division of our armylying encamped. They were still asleep; and the rising sun, and abeautiful morning, gave additional sublimity to the scene; for therewas nothing but the tops of the white tents peeping above the fruittrees; and an occasional sentinel pacing his post, that gave anyindication of what a nest of hornets the blast of a bugle could bringout of that apparently peaceful solitude. Our road now wound up the mountain to our right; and, almost satiatedwith the continued grandeur around us, we arrived, in the afternoon, at the town of Medina, and encamped a short distance beyond it. We were welcomed into every town or village through which we passed, by the peasant girls, who were in the habit of meeting us withgarlands of flowers, and dancing before us in a peculiar style oftheir own; and it not unfrequently happened, that while they were soemployed with one regiment, the preceding one was diligently engagedin pulling down some of their houses for firewood--a measure which wewere sometimes obliged to have recourse to, where no other fuel couldbe had, and for which they were, ultimately, paid by the BritishGovernment; but it was a measure that was more likely to have set thepoor souls dancing mad than for joy, had they foreseen theconsequences of our visit. June 17th. --We had not seen any thing of the enemy since we left theneighbourhood of Burgos; but, after reaching our ground this evening, we were aware that some of their videttes were feeling for us. On the morning of the 18th, we were ordered to march to San Milan, asmall town, about two leagues off; and where, on our arrival on thehill above it, we found a division of French infantry, as strong asourselves, in the act of crossing our path. The surprise, I believe, was mutual, though I doubt whether the pleasure was equally so; for wewere red hot for an opportunity of retaliating for the Salamancaretreat; and, as the old saying goes, "there is no opportunity likethe present. " Their leading brigade had nearly passed before we cameup, but not a moment was lost after we did. Our battalion dispersingamong the brushwood, went down the hill upon them; and, with adestructive fire, broke through their line of march, supported by therest of the brigade. Those that had passed made no attempt at a stand, but continued their flight, keeping up as good a fire as theircircumstances would permit; while we kept hanging on their flank andrear, through a good rifle country, which enabled us to makeconsiderable havoc among them. Their general's aide-de-camp, amongstothers, was mortally wounded; and a lady, on a white horse, whoprobably was his wife, remained beside him, until we came very near. She appeared to be in great distress; but, though we called to her toremain, and not to be alarmed, yet she galloped off as soon as adecided step became necessary. The object of her solicitude did notsurvive many minutes after we reached him. We followed the retreatingfoe until late in the afternoon. On this occasion, our brigade came infor all the blows, and the other for all the baggage, which wasmarching between the two French brigades; the latter of which, seeingthe scrape into which the first had fallen, very prudently left it toits fate, and dispersed on the opposite mountains, where some of themfell into the hands of a Spanish force that was detached in pursuit;but, I believe, the greater part succeeded in joining their army theday after the battle of Vittoria. We heard a heavy cannonade all day to our left, occasioned, as weunderstood, by the fifth division falling in with another detachmentof the enemy, which the unexpected and rapid movements of LordWellington was hastening to their general point of assembly. On the early part of the 19th, we were fagging up the face of amountain, under a sultry hot sun, until we came to a place where abeautiful clear stream was dashing down the face of it, when thedivision was halted, to enable the men to refresh themselves. Everyman carries a cup, and every man ran and swallowed a cup full ofit--it was salt water from the springs of Salinas; and it was trulyludicrous to see their faces after taking such a voluntary dose. Iobserved an Irishman, who, not satisfied with the first trial, andbelieving that his cup had been infected by some salt breaking loosein his haversack, he washed it carefully and then drank a second one, when, finding no change, he exclaimed, --"by J----s, boys, we must benear the sea, for the water's getting salt!" We, soon after, passedthrough the village of Salinas, situated at the source of the stream, where there is a considerable salt manufactory. The inhabitants wereso delighted to see us, that they placed buckets full of it at thedoors of the different houses, and entreated our men to helpthemselves as they passed along. It rained hard in the afternoon, andit was late before we got to our ground. We heard a good deal offiring in the neighbourhood in the course of the day, but our divisionwas not engaged. We retained the same bivouac all day on the 20th; it was behind arange of mountains within a short distance of the left of the enemy'sposition, as we afterwards discovered; and though we heard anoccasional gun, from the other side of the mountain in the course ofthe day, fired at Lord Wellington's reconnoitring party, the peace ofour valley remained undisturbed. CHAP. XIV. Battle of Vittoria. Defeat of the Enemy. Confusion among their Followers. Plunder. Colonel Cameron. Pursuit, and the Capture of their Last Gun. Arrive near Pampeluna. At Villalba. An Irish method of making a useless Bed useful. BATTLE OF VITTORIA, June 21st, 1813. Our division got under arms this morning before daylight, passed thebase of the mountain by its left, through the camp of the fourthdivision, who were still asleep in their tents, to the banks of theriver Zadora, at the village of Tres Puentes. The opposite side of theriver was occupied by the enemy's advanced posts, and we saw theirarmy on the hills beyond, while the spires of Vittoria were visiblein the distance. We felt as if there was likely to be a battle; but asthat was an event we were never sure of, until we found ourselvesactually in it, we lay for some time just out of musket shot, uncertain what was likely to turn up, and waiting for orders. Atlength a sharp fire of musketry was heard to our right; and, onlooking in that direction, we saw the head of Sir Rowland Hill'scorps, together with some Spanish troops, attempting to force themountain which marked the enemy's left. The three battalions of ourregiment were, at the same moment, ordered forward to feel the enemy, who lined the opposite banks of the river, with whom we were quicklyengaged in a warm skirmish. The affair with Sir Rowland Hill becamegradually warmer, but ours had apparently no other object than toamuse those who were opposite to us, for the moment; so that, forabout two hours longer, it seemed as if there would be nothing but anaffair of outposts. About twelve o'clock, however, we were movedrapidly to our left, followed by the rest of the division, till wecame to an abrupt turn of the river, where we found a bridge, unoccupied by the enemy, which we immediately crossed, and tookpossession of, what appeared to me to be, an old field-work, on theother side. We had not been many seconds there before we observed thebayonets of the third and seventh divisions glittering above thestanding corn, and advancing upon another bridge, which stood about aquarter of a mile further to our left, and where, on their arrival, they were warmly opposed by the enemy's light troops, who lined thebank of the river, (which we ourselves were now on, ) in great force, for the defence of the bridge. As soon as this was observed by ourdivision, Colonel Barnard advanced with our battalion, and took themin flank with such a furious fire as quickly dislodged them, andthereby opened a passage for these two divisions free of expense, which must otherwise have cost them dearly. What with the rapidity ofour movement, the colour of our dress, and our close contact with theenemy, before they would abandon their post, we had the misfortune tobe identified with them for some time, by a battery of our own guns, who, not observing the movement, continued to serve it outindiscriminately, and all the while admiring their practice upon us;nor was it until the red coats of the third division joined us, thatthey discovered their mistake. The battle now commenced in earnest; and this was perhaps the mostinteresting moment of the whole day. Sir Thomas Graham's artillery, with the first and fifth divisions, began to be heard far to our left, beyond Vittoria. The bridge, which we had just cleared, stood so nearto a part of the enemy's position, that the seventh division wasinstantly engaged in close action with them at that point. On the mountain to our extreme right the action continued to begeneral and obstinate, though we observed that the enemy were givingground slowly to Sir Rowland Hill. The passage of the river by ourdivision had turned the enemy's outpost, at the bridge, on our right, where we had been engaged in the morning, and they were nowretreating, followed by the fourth division. The plain between themand Sir Rowland Hill was occupied by the British cavalry, who were nowseen filing out of a wood, squadron after squadron, galloping intoform as they gradually cleared it. The hills behind were covered withspectators, and the third and the light divisions, covered by ourbattalion, advanced rapidly, upon a formidable hill, in front of theenemy's centre, which they had neglected to occupy in sufficientforce. In the course of our progress, our men kept picking off the Frenchvidettes, who were imprudent enough to hover too near us; and many ahorse, bounding along the plain, dragging his late rider by thestirrup-irons, contributed in making it a scene of extraordinary andexhilarating interest. Old Picton rode at the head of the third division, dressed in a bluecoat and a round hat, and swore as roundly all the way as if he hadbeen wearing two cocked ones. Our battalion soon cleared the hill inquestion of the enemy's light troops; but we were pulled up on theopposite side of it by one of their lines, which occupied a wall atthe entrance of a village immediately under us. During the few minutesthat we stopped there, while a brigade of the third division wasdeploying into line, two of our companies lost two officers and thirtymen, chiefly from the fire of artillery bearing on the spot from theFrench position. One of their shells burst immediately under my nose, part of it struck my boot and stirrup-iron, and the rest of it kickedup such a dust about me that my charger refused to obey orders; and, while I was spurring and he capering, I heard a voice behind me, whichI knew to be Lord Wellington's, calling out, in a tone of reproof, "look to keeping your men together, sir;" and though, God knows, I hadnot the remotest idea that he was within a mile of me at the time, yet, so sensible was I that circumstances warranted his supposing thatI was a young officer, cutting a caper, by way of bravado, before him, that worlds would not have tempted me to look round at the moment. The French fled from the wall as soon as they received a volley from apart of the third division, and we instantly dashed down the hill, andcharged them through the village, capturing three of their guns; thefirst, I believe, that were taken that day. They received areinforcement, and drove us back before our supports could come to ourassistance; but, in the scramble of the moment, our men were knowingenough to cut the traces, and carry off the horses, so that, when weretook the village, immediately after, the guns still remained in ourpossession. The battle now became general along the whole line, andthe cannonade was tremendous. At one period, we held one side of awall, near the village, while the French were on the other, so thatany person who chose to put his head over from either side was sure ofgetting a sword or a bayonet up his nostrils. This situation was, ofcourse, too good to be of long endurance. The victory, I believe, wasnever for a moment doubtful. The enemy were so completelyout-generalled, and the superiority of our troops was such, that tocarry their positions required little more than the time necessary tomarch to them. After forcing their centre, the fourth division and ourown got on the flank and rather in rear of the enemy's left wing, whowere retreating before Sir Rowland Hill, and who, to effect theirescape, were now obliged to fly in one confused mass. Had a singleregiment of our dragoons been at hand, or even a squadron, to haveforced them into shape for a few minutes, we must have taken from tento twenty thousand prisoners. After marching along side of them fornearly two miles, and as a disorderly body will always move fasterthan an orderly one, we had the mortification to see them graduallyheading us, until they finally made their escape. I have no doubt butthat our mounted gentlemen were doing their duty as they ought inanother part of the field; yet, it was impossible to deny ourselvesthe satisfaction of cursing them all, because a portion had not beenthere at such a critical moment. Our elevated situation, at thistime, afforded a good view of the field of battle to our left, and Icould not help being struck with an unusual appearance of unsteadinessand want of confidence among the French troops. I saw a dense mass ofmany thousands occupying a good defensible post, who gave way in thegreatest confusion, before a single line of the third division, almostwithout feeling them. If there was nothing in any other part of theposition to justify the movement, and I do not think there was, theyought to have been flogged, every man, from the general downwards. The ground was particularly favourable to the retreating foe, as everyhalf-mile afforded a fresh and formidable position, so that, from thecommencement of the action to the city of Vittoria, a distance of sixor eight miles, we were involved in one continued hard skirmish. Onpassing Vittoria, however, the scene became quite new and infinitelymore amusing, as the French had made no provision for a retreat; and, Sir Thomas Graham having seized upon the great road to France, theonly one left open was that leading by Pampeluna; and it was not openlong, for their fugitive army, and their myriads of followers, withbaggage, guns, carriages, &c. Being all precipitated upon it at thesame moment, it got choked up about a mile beyond the town, in themost glorious state of confusion; and the drivers, finding that onepair of legs was worth two pair of wheels, abandoned it all to thevictors. Many of their followers who had light carriages, endeavoured to maketheir escape through the fields; but it only served to prolong theirmisery. I shall never forget the first that we overtook: it was in the midstof a stubble-field, for some time between us and the Frenchskirmishers, the driver doing all he could to urge the horses along;but our balls began to whistle so plentifully about his ears, that heat last dismounted in despair, and, getting on his knees, under thecarriage, began praying. His place on the box was quickly occupied byas many of our fellows as could stick on it, while others werescrambling in at the doors on each side, and not a few on the roof, handling the baskets there so roughly, as to occasion loud complaintsfrom the fowls within. I rode up to the carriage, to see that thepeople inside were not improperly treated; but the only one there wasan old gouty gentleman, who, from the nature of his cargo, must eitherhave robbed his own house, or that of a very good fellow, for thecarriage was literally laden with wines and provisions. Never didvictors make a more legal or useful capture; for it was now six in theevening, and it had evidently been the old gentleman's fault if he hadnot already dined, whereas it was our misfortune, rather than ourfault, that we had not tasted anything since three o'clock in themorning, so that when one of our men knocked the neck off a bottle, and handed it to me, to take a drink, I nodded to the old fellow'shealth, and drank it off without the smallest scruple of conscience. It was excellent claret, and if he still lives to tell the story, Ifear he will not give us the credit of having belonged to such a_civil_ department as his appeared. We did not cease the pursuit until dark, and then halted in a field ofwheat, about two miles beyond Vittoria. The victory was complete. Theycarried off only one howitzer out of their numerous artillery, which, with baggage, stores, provisions, money, and every thing thatconstitutes the _matériel_ of an army, fell into our hands. It is much to be lamented, on those occasions, that the people whocontribute most to the victory should profit the least by it; not thatI am an advocate for plunder--on the contrary, I would much ratherthat all our fighting was for pure _love_; but, as every thing ofvalue falls into the hands of the followers, and scoundrels who skulkfrom the ranks for the double purpose of plundering and saving theirdastardly carcasses, what I regret is, that the man who deserts hispost should thereby have an opportunity of enriching himself withimpunity, while the true man gets nothing; but the evil I believe isirremediable. Sir James Kempt, who commanded our brigade, in passingone of the captured waggons in the evening, saw a soldier loadinghimself with money, and was about to have him conveyed to the camp asa prisoner, when the fellow begged hard to be released, and to beallowed to retain what he had got, telling the general that all theboxes in the waggon were filled with gold. Sir James, with his usualliberality, immediately adopted the idea of securing it, as a rewardto his brigade, for their gallantry; and, getting a fatigue party, hecaused the boxes to be removed to his tent, and ordered an officer andsome men from each regiment to parade there next morning, to receivetheir proportions of it; but, when they opened the boxes, they foundthem filled with _hammers, nails, and horse-shoes_! Among the evil chances of that glorious day, I had to regret thetemporary loss of Colonel Cameron, --a bad wound in the thigh havingobliged him to go to England. Of him I can truly say, that, as a_friend_, his heart was in the right place, and, as a _soldier_, hisright place was at the head of a regiment in the face of an enemy. Inever saw an officer feel more at home in such a situation, nor do Iknow any one who could fill it better. A singular accident threw me in the way of a dying French officer, whogave me a group of family portraits to transmit to his friends; but, as it was not until the following year that I had an opportunity ofmaking the necessary inquiries after them, they had then left theirresidence, and were nowhere to be heard of. As not only the body, but the mind, had been in constant occupationsince three o'clock in the morning, circumstances no sooner permitted(about ten at night) than I threw myself on the ground, and fell intoa profound sleep, from which I did not awake until broad daylight, when I found a French soldier squatted near me, intensely watching forthe opening of my _shutters_. He had contrived to conceal himselfthere during the night; and, when he saw that I was awake, heimmediately jumped on his legs, and very obsequiously presented mewith a map of France, telling me that as there was now a probabilityof our visiting his native country, he could make himself very useful, and would be glad if I would accept of his services. I thought itunfair, however, to deprive him of the present opportunity of seeing alittle more of the world himself, and, therefore, sent him to join therest of the prisoners, which would insure him a trip to England, freeof expense. About midday, on the 22d, our three battalions, with some cavalry andartillery, were ordered in pursuit of the enemy. I do not know how it is, but I have always had a mortal objection tobe killed the day after a victory. In the actions preceding a battle, or in the battle itself, it never gave me much uneasiness, as beingall in the way of business; but, after surviving the great day, Ialways felt as if I had a right to live to tell the story; and I, therefore, did not find the ensuing three days' fighting half sopleasant as they otherwise would have been. Darkness overtook us this night without our overtaking the enemy; andwe halted in a grove of pines, exposed to a very heavy rain. Inimprudently shifting my things from one tree to another, after dark, some rascal contrived to steal the velisse containing my dressingthings, than which I do not know a greater loss, when there is nopossibility of replacing any part of them. We overtook their rear-guard early on the following day, and, hangingon their line of march until dark, we did them all the mischief thatwe could. They burnt every village through which they passed, underthe pretence of impeding our movements; but, as it did not make theslightest difference in that respect, we could only view it as awanton piece of cruelty. On the 24th, we were again engaged in pressing their rear the greaterpart of the day; and, ultimately, in giving them the last kick, underthe walls of Pampeluna, where we had the glory of capturing theirlast gun, which literally sent them into France without a single pieceof ordnance. Our battalion occupied, that night, a large, well-furnished, butuninhabited chateau, a short distance from Pampeluna. We got under arms early on the morning of the 25th; and, passing by amountain-path, to the left of Pampeluna, within range of the guns, though they did not fire at us, circled the town, until we reached thevillage of Villalba, where we halted for the night. Since I joinedthat army, I had never, up to that period, been master of any thing inthe shape of a bed; and, though I did not despise a bundle of straw, when it could conveniently be had, yet my boat-cloak and blanket weremore generally to be seen, spread out for my reception on the bareearth. But, in proceeding to turn into them, as usual, this evening, Iwas not a little astonished to find, in their stead, a comfortablemattress, with a suitable supply of linen, blankets, and pillows; inshort, the very identical bedding on which I had slept, the nightbefore, in the chateau, three leagues off, and which my rascal of anIrishman had bundled altogether on the back of my mule, without givingme the slightest hint of his intentions. On my taking him to taskabout it, and telling him that he would certainly be hanged, all thathe said in reply was, "by J--s, they had more than a hundred beds inthat house, and not a single soul to sleep in them. " I was very muchannoyed, at the time, that there was no possibility of returning themto their rightful owner, as, independent of its being nothing short ofa regular robbery, I really looked upon them as a very unnecessaryencumbrance; but being forced, in some measure, to indulge in theircomforts, I was not long in changing my mind; and was, ultimately, notvery sorry that the possibility of restoration never did occur. CHAP. XV. March to intercept Clausel. Tafalla. Olite. The dark End of a Night March to Casada. Clausel's Escape. Sanguessa. My Tent struck. Return to Villalba. Weighty Considerations on Females. St. Esteban. A Severe Dance. Position at Bera. Soult's Advance, and Battle of the Pyrenees. His Defeat and subsequent Actions. A Morning's Ride. June 26th, 1813. --Our division fell in this morning, at daylight, and, marching out of Villalba, circled round the southern side ofPampeluna, until we reached the great road leading to Tafalla, wherewe found ourselves united with the third and fourth divisions, and alarge body of cavalry; the whole under the immediate command of LordWellington, proceeded southward, with a view to intercept GeneralClausel, who, with a strong division of the French army, had been atLogrona, on the day of the battle of Vittoria, and was nowendeavouring to pass into the Pyrenees by our right. We marched untilsun set, and halted for the night in a wood. On the morning of the 27th we were again in motion, and passingthrough a country abounding in fruits, and all manner of delightfulprospects; and through the handsome town of Tafalla, where we wereenthusiastically cheered by the beauteous occupants of the numerousbalconies overhanging the streets. We halted, for the night, in anolive-grove, a short distance from Olite. At daylight next morning we passed through the town of Olite, andcontinued our route until we began to enter among the mountains, aboutmidday, when we halted two hours, to enable the men to cook, and againresumed our march. Darkness overtook us, while struggling through anarrow rugged road, which wound its way along the bank of the Arragon;and we did not reach our destination, at Casada, until near midnight, where, amid torrents of rain, and in the darkness of the night, wecould find nothing but ploughed fields on which to repose our wearylimbs, nor could we find a particle of fuel to illuminate thecheerless scene. Breathed there a man of soul so dead, Who would not to himself have said, This is--a confounded comfortless dwelling. Dear Sir Walter, --pray excuse the _Casadians_, from your curseentailed on home haters, for if any one of them ever succeeds ingetting beyond the mountain, by the road which I traversed, he oughtto be anathematized if ever he seek his home again. We passed the whole of the next day in the same place. It wasdiscovered that Clausel had been walking blindly into the _lion'sden_, when the _alcaldé_ of a neighbouring village had warned him ofhis danger, and he was thereby enabled to avoid us, by turning offtowards Zaragossa. We heard that Lord Wellington had caused theinformer to be hanged. I hope he did, but I don't believe it. On the 30th we began to retrace our steps to Pampeluna, in the courseof which we halted two nights at Sanguessa, a populous mountain town, full of old rattle-trap houses, a good many of which we pulled downfor firewood, by way of making room for improvements. I was taking advantage of this extra day's halt to communicate to myfriends the important events of the past fortnight, when I foundmyself all at once wrapped into a bundle, with my tent-pole, and sentrolling upon the earth, mixed up with my portable table and writingutensils, while the devil himself seemed to be dancing a hornpipe overmy body! Although this is a sort of thing that one will sometimessubmit to, when it comes by way of illusion, at its proper time andplace, such as a midnight visit from a night-mare; yet, as I seemednow to be visited by a horse as well as a mare, and that, too, in themiddle of the day, and in the midst of a crowded camp, it was rathertoo much of a joke, and I therefore sung out most lustily. I was notlong in getting extricated, and found that the whole scene had beenarranged by two rascally donkies, who, in a frolicsome humour, hadbeen chasing each other about the neighbourhood, until they finallytumbled into my tent, with a force which drew every peg, and rolledthe whole of it over on the top of me! It might have been good sportto them, but it was none to me! On the 3d of July, we resumed our quarters in Villalba, where wehalted during the whole of the next day; and were well supplied withfish, fresh-butter, and eggs, brought by the peasantry of Biscay, whoare the most _manly_ set of _women_ that I ever saw. They are verysquare across the shoulders; and, what between the quantity of fish, and the quantity of yellow petticoats, they carry a load which anordinary mule might boast of. A division of Spaniards having relieved us in the blockade ofPampeluna, our division, on the 5th of July, advanced into thePyrenees. On the 7th, we took up our quarters in the little town of St. Esteban, situated in a lovely valley, watered by the Bidassoa. The differentvalleys in the Pyrenees are very rich and fertile. The towns are cleanand regular, and the natives very handsome. They are particularlysmart about the limbs, and in no other part of the world have I seenany thing, natural or artificial, to rival the complexions of theladies, _i. E. _ to the admirers of pure red and white. We were allowed to remain several days in this enchanting spot, andenjoyed ourselves exceedingly. They had an extraordinary style ofdancing, peculiar to themselves. At a particular part of the tune, they all began thumping the floor with their feet, as hard and as fastas they were able, not in the shape of a figure or flourish of anykind, but even down pounding. I could not, myself, see any thingeither graceful or difficult in the operation; but they seemed tothink that there was only one lady amongst them who could do it inperfection; she was the wife of a French Colonel, and had been left inthe care of her friends, (and his enemies): she certainly could poundthe ground both harder and faster than any one there, eliciting thegreatest applause after every performance; and yet I do not think thatshe could have caught a _French_ husband by her superiority in thatparticular step. After our few days halt, we advanced along the banks of the Bidassoa, through a succession of beautiful little fertile valleys, thicklystudded with clean respectable looking farm-houses and littlevillages, and bounded by stupendous, picturesque, and well woodedmountains, until we came to the hill next to the village of Bera, which we found occupied by a small force of the enemy, who, afterreceiving a few shots from our people, retired through the villageinto their position behind it. Our line of demarcation was thenclearly seen. The mountain which the French army occupied was the lastridge of the Pyrenees; and their sentries stood on the face of it, within pistol shot of the village of Bera, which now became theadvanced post of our division. The Bidassoa takes a sudden turn to theleft at Bera, and formed a natural boundary between the two armiesfrom thence to the sea; but all to our right was open, and merelymarked a continuation of the valley of Bera, which was a sort ofneutral ground, in which the French foragers and our own frequentlymet and helped themselves, in the greatest good humour, while anyforage remained, without exchanging either words or blows. The leftwing of the army, under Sir Thomas Graham, now commenced the siege ofSt. Sebastian; and as Lord Wellington had, at the same time, to coverboth that and the blockade of Pampeluna, our army occupied an extendedposition of many miles. Marshal Soult having succeeded to the command of the French army, andfinding, towards the end of July, that St. Sebastian was about to bestormed, and that the garrison of Pampeluna were beginning to get onshort allowance, he determined on making a bold push for the reliefof both places; and, assembling the whole of his army, he forced thepass of Maya, and advanced rapidly upon Pampeluna. Lord Wellington wasnever to be caught napping. His army occupied too extended a positionto offer effectual resistance at any of their advanced posts; but, bythe time that Marshal Soult had worked his way up to the last ridge ofthe Pyrenees, and within sight of "the haven of his wishes, " he foundhis lordship waiting for him, with four divisions of the army, whotreated him to one of the most signal and sanguinary defeats that heever experienced. Our division, during the important movements on our right, wasemployed in keeping up the communication between the troops under theimmediate command of Lord Wellington and those under Sir ThomasGraham, at St. Sebastian. We retired, the first day, to the mountainsbehind Le Secca; and, just as we were about to lie down for the night, we were again ordered under arms, and continued our retreat in utterdarkness, through a mountain path, where, in many places, a false stepmight have rolled a fellow as far as the other world. The consequencewas, that, although we were kept on our legs during the whole of thenight, we found, when daylight broke, that the tail of the column hadnot got a quarter of a mile from their starting-post. On a good broad road it is all very well; but, on a narrow bad road, anight march is like a night-mare, harassing a man to no purpose. On the 26th, we occupied a ridge of mountain near enough to hear thebattle, though not in a situation to see it; and remained the whole ofthe day in the greatest torture, for want of news. About midnight weheard the joyful tidings of the enemy's defeat, with the loss of fourthousand prisoners. Our division proceeded in pursuit, at daylight, onthe following morning. We moved rapidly by the same road on which we had retired, and, aftera forced march, found ourselves, when near sunset, on the flank oftheir retiring column, on the Bidassoa, near the bridge of Janca, andimmediately proceeded to business. The sight of a Frenchman always acted like a cordial on the spirits ofa rifleman; and the fatigues of the day were forgotten, as our threebattalions extended among the brushwood, and went down to "knock thedust out of their hairy knapsacks, "[2] as our men were in the habit ofexpressing themselves; but, in place of knocking the dust out of them, I believe that most of their knapsacks were knocked in the dust; forthe greater part of those who were not _floored_ along with theirknapsacks, shook them off, by way of enabling the owner to make asmarter scramble across that portion of the road on which our leadenshower was pouring; and, foes as they were, it was impossible not tofeel a degree of pity for their situation: pressed by an enemy in therear, an inaccessible mountain on their right, and a river on theirleft, lined by an invisible foe, from whom there was no escape, butthe desperate one of running the gauntlet. However, "as every ---- hashis day, " and this was ours, we must stand excused for making the mostof it. Each company, as they passed, gave us a volley; but as they hadnothing to guide their aim, except the smoke from our rifles, we hadvery few men hit. [Footnote 2: The French knapsack is made of unshorn goat-skin. ] Amongst other papers found on the road that night, one of our officersdiscovered the letter-book of the French military secretary, with hiscorrespondence included to the day before. It was immediately sent toLord Wellington. We advanced, next morning, and occupied our former post, at Bera. Theenemy still continued to hold the mountain of Echelar, which, as itrose out of the right end of our ridge, was, properly speaking, a partof our property; and we concluded, that a sense of justice would haveinduced them to leave it of their own accord in the course of the day;but when, towards the afternoon, they shewed no symptoms of quitting, our division, leaving their kettles on the fire, proceeded to ejectthem. As we approached the mountain, the peak of it caught a passingcloud, that gradually descended in a thick fog, and excluded them fromour view. Our three battalions, however, having been let loose, underColonel Barnard, we soon made ourselves "Children of the Mist;" and, guided to our opponents by the whistling of their balls, made themdescend from their "high estate;" and, handing them across the valleyinto their own position, we then retired to ours, where we found ourtables ready spread, and a comfortable dinner waiting for us. This was one of the most gentleman-like day's fighting that I everexperienced, although we had to lament the vacant seats of one or twoof our messmates. August 22d. --I narrowly escaped being taken prisoner this morning, very foolishly. A division of Spaniards occupied the ground to ourleft, beyond the Bidassoa; and, having mounted my horse to take a lookat their post, I passed through a small village, and then got on arugged path winding along the edge of the river, where I expected tofind their outposts. The river, at that place, was not aboveknee-deep, and about ten or twelve yards across; and though I saw anumber of soldiers gathering chestnuts from a row of trees which linedthe opposite bank, I concluded that they were Spaniards, and keptmoving onwards; but, observing, at last, that I was an object ofgreater curiosity than I ought to be, to people who had been in thedaily habit of seeing the uniform, it induced me to take a moreparticular look at my neighbours; when, to my consternation, I saw theFrench eagle ornamenting the front of every cap. I instantly wheeledmy horse to the right about; and seeing that I had a full quarter of amile to traverse at a walk, before I could get clear of them, I beganto whistle, with as much unconcern as I could muster, while my eye wassearching, like lightning, for the means of escape, in the event oftheir trying to cut me off. I had soon the satisfaction of observingthat none of them had firelocks, which reduced my capture to thechances of a race; for, though the hill on my right was inaccessibleto a horseman, it was not so to a dismounted Scotchman; and I, therefore, determined, in case of necessity, to abandon my horse, andshew them what I could do on my own bottom at a pinch. Fortunately, they did not attempt it; and I could scarcely credit my good luck, when I found myself once more in my own tent. CHAP. XVI. An Anniversary Dinner. Affair with the Enemy, and Fall of St. Sebastian. A Building Speculation. A Fighting one, storming the Heights of Bera. A Picture of France from the Pyrenees. Returns after an Action. Sold by my Pay-Serjeant. A Recruit born at his Post. Between Two Fires, a Sea and a Land one. Position of La Rhune. My Picture taken in a Storm. Refreshing Invention for wintry Weather. The 25th of August, being our regimental anniversary, was observed bythe officers of our three battalions with all due conviviality. Twotrenches, calculated to accommodate seventy gentlemen's legs, were dugin the green sward; the earth between them stood for a table, andbehind was our seat, and though the table could not boast of _all_the delicacies of a civic entertainment, yet "The worms they crept in, and the worms they crept out, " As the earth almost quaked with the weight of the feast, and the enemycertainly did, from the noise of it. For so many fellows holding suchprecarious tenures of their lives could not meet together incommemoration of such an event, without indulging in an occasionalcheer--not a whispering cheer, but one that echoed far and wide intothe French lines, and as it was a sound that had often pierced thembefore, and never yet boded them any good, we heard afterwards thatthey were kept standing at their arms the greater part of the night inconsequence. At the time of Soult's last irruption into the Pyrenees, Sir ThomasGraham had made an unsuccessful attempt to carry St. Sebastian bystorm, and having, ever since, been prosecuting the siege withunremitting vigour, the works were now reduced to such a state as tojustify a second attempt, and our division sent forth their threehundred volunteers to join the storming party. [3] The morning on whichwe expected the assault to take place, we had turned out beforedaylight, as usual, and as a thick fog hung on the French position, which prevented our seeing them, we turned in again at the usual time, but had scarcely done so, when the mist rode off on a passing breeze, showing us the opposite hills bristling with their bayonets, and theircolumns descending rapidly towards us. The bugles instantly sounded toarms, and we formed on our alarm posts. We thought at first that theattack was intended for us, but they presently began to pass theriver, a little below the village of Bera, and to advance against theSpaniards on our left. They were covered by some mountain guns, fromwhich their first shell fell short, and made such a breach in theirown leading column, that we could not resist giving three cheers totheir marksman. Leaving a strong covering party to keep our divisionin check at the bridge of Bera, their main body followed theSpaniards, who, offering little opposition, continued retiring towardsSt. Sebastian. [Footnote 3: Lieutenants Percival and Hamilton commanded those from our battalion, and were both desperately wounded. ] We remained quiet the early part of the day, under a harmless firefrom their mountain guns; but, towards the afternoon, our battalion, with part of the forty-third, and supported by a brigade of Spaniards, were ordered to pass by the bridge of Le Secca, and to move in aparallel direction with the French, along the same ridge of hills. The different flanking-posts of the enemy permitted the forty-thirdand us to pass them quietly, thinking, I suppose, that it was theirinterest to keep the peace; but not so with the Spaniards, whom theykept in a regular fever, under a smart fire, the whole way. We took upa position at dark, on a pinnacle of the same mountain, within threeor four hundred yards of them. There had been a heavy firing all dayto our left, and we heard, in the course of the night, of the fall ofSt. Sebastian, as well as of the defeat of the force which we had seenfollowing the Spaniards in that direction. As we always took the liberty of abusing our friends, thecommissaries, whether with or without reason, whenever we happened tobe on short allowance, it is but fair to say that when our supportingSpanish brigadier came to compare notes with us here, we found that wehad three days' rations in the haversack against his none. He verypolitely proposed to relieve us from half of ours, and to give areceipt for it, but we told him that the trouble in carrying it was apleasure! At daylight next morning we found that the enemy had altogetherdisappeared from our front. The heavy rains during the past night hadrendered the Bidassoa no longer fordable, and the bridge of Bera beingthe only retreat left open, it was fortunate for them that they tookadvantage of it before we had time to occupy the post with asufficient force to defend the passage, otherwise they would have beencompelled, in all probability, to have laid down their arms. As it was, they suffered very severely from two companies of oursecond battalion, who were on piquet there. The two captainscommanding them were, however, killed in the affair. We returned in the course of the day and resumed our post at Bera, theenemy continuing to hold theirs beyond it. The ensuing month passed by, without producing the slightest novelty, and we began to get heartily tired of our situation. Our souls, infact, were strung for war, and peace afforded no enjoyment, unless theplace did, and there was none to be found in a valley of the Pyrenees, which the ravages of contending armies had reduced to a desert. Thelabours of the French on the opposite mountain had, in the firstinstance, been confined to fortification; but, as the season advanced, they seemed to think that the branch of a tree, or a sheet ofcanvass, was too slender a barrier between them and a frosty night, and their fortified camp was gradually becoming a fortified town, ofregular brick and mortar. Though we were living under the influence ofthe same sky, we did not think it necessary to give ourselves the sametrouble, but reasoned on their proceedings like philosophers, andcalculated, from the aspect of the times, that there was a probabilityof a speedy transfer of property, and that it might still be reservedfor us to give their town a name; nor were we disappointed. Late onthe night of the 7th of October, Colonel Barnard arrived fromhead-quarters, with the intelligence that the next was to be the dayof trial. Accordingly, on the morning of the 8th, the fourth divisioncame up to support us, and we immediately marched down to the foot ofthe enemy's position, shook off our knapsacks before their faces, andwent at them. The action commenced by five companies of our third battalionadvancing, under Colonel Ross, to dislodge the enemy from a hill whichthey occupied in front of their entrenchments; and there never was amovement more beautifully executed, for they walked quietly andsteadily up, and swept them regularly off without firing a single shotuntil the enemy had turned their backs, when they then served them outwith a most destructive discharge. The movement excited the admirationof all who witnessed it, and added another laurel to the alreadycrowded wreath which adorned the name of that distinguished officer. At the first look of the enemy's position, it appeared as if ourbrigade had got the most difficult task to perform; but, as thecapture of this hill showed us a way round the flank of theirentrenchments, we carried one after the other, until we finally gainedthe summit, with very little loss. Our second brigade, however, wereobliged to take "the bull by the horns, " on their side, and sufferedmore severely; but they rushed at every thing with a determinationthat defied resistance, carrying redoubt after redoubt at the point ofthe bayonet, until they finally joined us on the summit of themountain, with three hundred prisoners in their possession. We now found ourselves firmly established within the French territory, with a prospect before us that was truly refreshing, considering thatwe had not seen the sea for three years, and that our views, formonths, had been confined to fogs and the peaks of mountains. On ourleft, the Bay of Biscay lay extended as far as the horizon, whileseveral of our ships of war were seen sporting upon her bosom. Beneathus lay the pretty little town of St. Jean de Luz, which looked as ifit had just been framed out of the Lilliputian scenery of a toy-shop. The town of Bayonne, too, was visible in the distance; and the view tothe right embraced a beautiful well-wooded country, thickly studdedwith towns and villages, as far as the eye could reach. Sir Thomas Graham, with the left wing of the army, had, the samemorning, passed the Bidassoa, and established them, also, within theFrench boundary. A brigade of Spaniards, on our right, had made asimultaneous attack on La Rhune, the highest mountain on this part ofthe Pyrenees, and which, since our last advance, was properly now apart of our position. The enemy, however, refused to quit it; and thefiring between them did not cease until long after dark. The affair in which we were engaged terminated, properly speaking, when we had expelled the enemy from the mountain; but some of ourstraggling skirmishers continued to follow the retiring foe into thevalley beyond, with a view, no doubt, of seeing what a French housecontained. Lord Wellington, preparatory to this movement, had issued an orderrequiring that private property, of every kind, should be strictlyrespected; but we had been so long at war with France, that our menhad been accustomed to look upon them as their natural enemies, andcould not, at first, divest themselves of the idea that they had not aright to partake of the good things abounding about the cottage-doors. Our commandant, however, was determined to see the order rigidlyenforced, and it was, therefore, highly amusing to watch the return ofthe depredators. The first who made his appearance was a bugler, carrying a goose, which, after he had been well beaten about the headwith it, was transferred to the provost-marshal. The next was asoldier, with a calf; the soldier was immediately sent to thequarter-guard, and the calf to the provost-marshal. He was followed byanother soldier, mounted on a horse, who were, also, both consigned tothe same keeping; but, on the soldier stating that he had only got thehorse in charge from a volunteer, who was at that time attached to theregiment, he was set at liberty. Presently the volunteer himself cameup, and, not observing the colonel lying on the grass, called outamong the soldiers, "Who is the ---- rascal that sent my horse to theprovost-marshal?" "It was I!" said the colonel, to the utter confusionof the querist. Our chief was a good deal nettled at theseirregularities; and, some time after, on going to his tent, which waspitched between the roofless walls of a house, conceive hisastonishment at finding the calf and the goose hanging in his ownlarder! He looked serious for a moment, but, on receiving anexplanation, and after the row he had made about them, the thing wastoo ridiculous, and he burst out laughing. It is due to all concernedto state that they had, at last, been honestly come by, for I, as oneof his messmates, had purchased the goose from the proper quarter, andanother had done the same by the calf. Not anticipating this day's fight, I had given my pay-serjeanttwenty-five guineas, the day before, to distribute among the company;and I did not discover, until too late, that he had neglected to doit, as he disappeared in the course of the action, and was neverafterwards heard of. If he was killed, or taken prisoner, he must havebeen a prize to somebody, though he left me a blank. Among other incidents of the day, one of our men had a son and heirpresented to him by his Portuguese wife, soon after the action. Shehad been taken in labour while ascending the mountain; but it did notseem to interfere with her proceedings in the least, for she, and herchild, and her donkey, came all three screeching into the camp, immediately after, telling the news, as if it had been something veryextraordinary, and none of them a bit the worse. On the morning of the 9th, we turned out, as usual, an hour beforedaylight. The sound of musketry, to our right, in our own hemisphere, announced that the French and Spaniards had resumed their unfinishedargument of last night, relative to the occupation of La Rhune; while, at the same time, "from our throne of clouds, " we had an opportunityof contemplating, with some astonishment, the proceedings of thenether world. A French ship of war, considering St. Jean de Luz nolonger a free port, had endeavoured, under cover of the night, tosteal alongshore to Bayonne; and, when daylight broke, they had anopportunity of seeing that they were not only within sight of theirport, but within sight of a British gun-brig, and, if they entertainedany doubts as to which of the two was nearest, their minds werequickly relieved, on that point, by finding that they were not withinreach of their port, and strictly within reach of the _guns_ of thebrig, while two British frigates were bearing down with a press ofcanvass. The Frenchman returned a few broadsides; he was double thesize of the one opposed to him, but, conceiving his case to behopeless, he at length set fire to the ship, and took to his boats. Wewatched the progress of the flames until she finally blew up, anddisappeared in a column of smoke. The boats of our gun-brig wereafterwards seen employed in picking up the odds and ends. Our friends, the Spaniards, I have no doubt, would have been very gladto have got rid of their opponents in the same kind of way, either bytheir going without the mountain, or by their taking it with them. Butthe mountain stood, and the French stood, until we began to wish themountain, the French, and the Spaniards at the devil; for, although weknew that the affair between them was a matter of no consequencewhichever way it went, yet it was impossible for us to feel quite atease, while a fight was going on so near; it was, therefore, a greatrelief when, in the afternoon, a few companies of our second brigadewere sent to their assistance, as the French then retired withoutfiring another shot. Between the French and us there was no humbug, itwas either peace or war. The war, on both sides, was conducted on thegrand scale, and, by a tacit sort of understanding, we never teasedeach other unnecessarily. The French, after leaving La Rhune, established their advanced post onPetite La Rhune, a mountain that stood as high as most of itsneighbours; but, as its name betokens, it was but a child to itsgigantic namesake, of which it seemed as if it had, at a formerperiod, formed a part; but, having been shaken off, like a useless_galloche_, it now stood gaping, open-mouthed, at the place it hadleft, (and which had now become our advanced post, ) while the enemyproceeded to furnish its jaws with a set of teeth, or, in other words, to face it with breast-works, &c. A measure which they invariably hadrecourse to in every new position. Encamped on the face of La Rhune, we remained a whole month idlespectators of their preparations, and dearly longing for the day thatshould afford us an opportunity of penetrating into the morehospitable-looking low country beyond them; for the weather had becomeexcessively cold, and our camp stood exposed to the utmost fury of thealmost nightly tempest. Oft have I, in the middle of the night, awokefrom a sound sleep, and found my tent on the point of disappearing inthe air, like a balloon; and, leaving my warm blankets, been obligedto snatch the mallet, and rush out in the midst of a hailstorm, to pegit down. I think that I now see myself looking like one of those gaycreatures of the elements who dwelt (as Shakspeare has it) among therainbows! By way of contributing to the warmth of my tent, I dug a hole inside, which I arranged as a fire-place, carrying the smoke underneath thewalls, and building a turf-chimney outside. I was not long in provingthe experiment, and, finding that it went exceedingly well, I was nota little vain of the invention. However, it came on to rain very hardwhile I was dining at a neighbouring tent, and, on my return to myown, I found the fire not only extinguished, but a fountain playingfrom the same place, up to the roof, watering my bed and baggage, andall sides of it, most refreshingly. This showed me, at the expense ofmy night's repose, that the rain oozed through the thin spongy surfaceof earth, and, in particular places, rushed down in torrents betweenthe earth and the rock which it covered; and any incision in theformer was sure to produce a fountain. It is very singular that, notwithstanding our exposure to all theseverities of the worst of weather, that we had not a single sick manin the battalion while we remained there. CHAP. XVII. Battle of the Nivelle, and Defeat of the Enemy. A Bird of Evil Omen. Chateau D'Arcangues. Prudence. An Enemy's Gratitude. Passage of the Nive, and Battles near Bayonne, from 9th to 13th December. BATTLE OF THE NIVELLE, November 10th, 1813. The fall of Pampeluna having, at length, left our further movementsunshackled by an enemy in the rear, preparations were made for anattack on their position, which, though rather too extended, wasformidable by nature, and rendered doubly so by art. Petite La Rhune was allotted to our division, as their first point ofattack; and, accordingly, the 10th being the day fixed, we moved toour ground at midnight, on the 9th. The abrupt ridges in theneighbourhood enabled us to lodge ourselves, unperceived, withinhalf-musket-shot of their piquets; and we had left every descriptionof animal behind us in camp, in order that neither the barking of dogsnor the neighing of steeds should give indication of our intentions. Our signal of attack was to be a gun from Sir John Hope, who had nowsucceeded Sir Thomas Graham in the command of the left wing of thearmy. We stood to our arms at dawn of day, which was soon followed by thesignal-gun; and each commanding officer, according to previousinstructions, led gallantly off to his point of attack. The Frenchmust have been, no doubt, astonished to see such an armed force springout of the ground almost under their noses; but they were, nevertheless, prepared behind their entrenchments, and caused us someloss in passing the short space between us; but the whole place wascarried within the time required to walk over it; and, in less thanhalf-an-hour from the commencement of the attack, it was in ourpossession, with all their tents left standing. Petite La Rhune was more of an outpost than a part of their position, the latter being a chain of stupendous mountains in its rear; so thatwhile our battalion followed their skirmishers into the valleybetween, the remainder of our division were forming for the attack onthe main position, and waiting for the co-operation of the otherdivisions, the thunder of whose artillery, echoing along the valleys, proclaimed that they were engaged, far and wide, on both sides of us. About midday our division advanced to the grand attack on the mostformidable looking part of the whole of the enemy's position, and, much to our surprise, we carried it with more ease and less loss thanthe outpost in the morning, a circumstance which we could only accountfor by supposing that it had been defended by the same troops, andthat they did not choose to sustain two _hard_ beatings on the sameday. The attack succeeded at every point; and, in the evening, we hadthe satisfaction of seeing the left wing of the army marching into St. Jean de Luz. Towards the end of the action, Colonel Barnard was struck with amusket-ball, which carried him clean off his horse. The enemy, seeingthat they had shot an officer of rank, very maliciously kept up aheavy firing on the spot, while we were carrying him under the brow ofthe hill. The ball having passed through the lungs, he was spittingblood, and, at the moment, had every appearance of being in a dyingstate; but, to our joy and surprise, he, that day month, rode up to thebattalion, when it was in action, near Bayonne; and, I need not add, that he was received with three hearty cheers. A curious fact occurred in our regiment at this period. Prior to theaction of the Nivelle, an owl had perched itself on the tent of one ofour officers (Lieut. Doyle). This officer was killed in the battle, and the owl was afterwards seen on Capt. Duncan's tent. Hisbrother-officers quizzed him on the subject, by telling him that hewas the next on the list; a joke which Capt. D. Did not much relish, and it was prophetic, as he soon afterwards fell at Tarbes. The movements of the two or three days following placed the enemywithin their entrenchments at Bayonne, and the head-quarters of ourbattalion in the Chateau D'Arcangues, with the outposts of thedivision at the village of Bassasarry and its adjacents. I now felt myself both in a humour and a place to enjoy an interval ofpeace and quietness. The country was abundant in every comfort; thechateau was large, well-furnished, and unoccupied, except by abed-ridden grandmother, and young Arcangues, a gay rattling youngfellow, who furnished us with plenty of good wine, (by our paying forthe same, ) and made one of our mess. On the 20th of November a strong reconnoitring party of the enemyexamined our chain of posts. They remained a considerable time withinhalf-musket-shot of one of our piquets, but we did not fire, and theyseemed at last as if they had all gone away. The place where they hadstood bounded our view in that direction, as it was a small sand-hillwith a mud-cottage at the end of it; after watching the spot intenselyfor nearly an hour, and none shewing themselves, my curiosity wouldkeep no longer, and, desiring three men to follow, I rode forward toascertain the fact. When I cleared the end of the cottage, I foundmyself within three yards of at least a dozen of them, who were seatedin a group behind a small hedge, with their arms laid against the wallof the cottage, and a sentry with sloped arms, and his back towardsme, listening to their conversation. My first impulse was to gallop in amongst them, and order them tosurrender; but my three men were still twenty or thirty yards behind, and, as my only chance of success was by surprise, I thought the riskof the delay too great, and, reining back my horse, I made a signal tomy men to retire, which, from the soil being a deep sand, we wereenabled to do without the slightest noise; but all the while I had myears pricked up, expecting every instant to find a ball whistlingthrough my body; however, as none of them afterwards shewed themselvespast the end of the cottage, I concluded that they had remainedignorant of my visit. We had an affair of some kind, once a week, while we remained there;and as they were generally trifling, and we always found a good dinnerand a good bed in the chateau on our return, we considered them rathera relief than otherwise. The only instance of a want of professional generosity that I ever hadoccasion to remark in a French officer, occurred on one of theseoccasions. We were about to push in their outposts, for someparticular purpose, and I was sent with an order for LieutenantGardiner of ours, who was on piquet, to attack the post in his front, as soon as he should see a corresponding movement on his flank, whichwould take place almost immediately. The enemy's sentries were sonear, as to be quite at Mr. Gardiner's mercy, who immediately said tome, "Well, I wo'n't kill these unfortunate rascals at all events, butshall tell them to go in and join their piquet. " I applauded hismotives, and rode off; but I had only gone a short distance when Iheard a volley of musketry behind me; and, seeing that it had comefrom the French piquet, I turned back to see what had happened, andfound that the officer commanding it had no sooner got his sentries sogenerously restored to him, than he instantly formed his piquet andfired a volley at Lieutenant Gardiner, who was walking a little apartfrom his men, waiting for the expected signal. The balls all fellnear, without touching him, and, for the honour of the French army, Iwas glad to hear afterwards that the officer alluded to was amilitia-man. BATTLES NEAR BAYONNE, December 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th, 1813. The centre and left wing of our army advanced on the morning of the9th of December, and drove the enemy within their entrenchments, threatening an attack on their lines. Lord Wellington had the doubleobject, in this movement, of reconnoitring their works, and effectingthe passage of the Nive with his right wing. The rivers Nive and Adourunite in the town of Bayonne, so that while we were threatening tostorm the works on one side, Sir Rowland Hill passed the Nive, withoutopposition, on the other, and took up his ground, with his right onthe Adour and his left on the Nive, on a contracted space, within avery short distance of the walls of the town. On our side we wereengaged in a continued skirmish until dark, when we retired to ourquarters, under the supposition that we had got our usual week'sallowance, and that we should remain quiet again for a time. We turned out at daylight on the 10th; but, as there was a thickdrizzling rain which prevented us from seeing any thing, we soonturned in again. My servant soon after came to tell me that Sir LowryCole, and some of his staff, had just ascended to the top of thechateau, a piece of information which did not quite please me, for Ifancied that the general had just discovered our quarter to be betterthan his own, and had come for the purpose of taking possession of it. However, in less than five minutes, we received an order for ourbattalion to move up instantly to the support of the piquets; and, onmy descending to the door, to mount my horse, I found Sir Lowrystanding there, who asked if we had received any orders; and, on mytelling him that we had been ordered up to support the piquets, heimmediately desired a staff-officer to order up one of his brigades tothe rear of the chateau. This was one of the numerous instances inwhich we had occasion to admire the prudence and forethought of thegreat Wellington! He had foreseen the attack that would take place, and had his different divisions disposed to meet it. We no soonermoved up, than we found ourselves a party engaged along with thepiquets; and, under a heavy skirmishing fire, retiring gradually fromhedge to hedge, according as the superior force of the enemy compelledus to give ground, until we finally retired within our home, thechateau, which was the first part of our position that was meant to bedefended in earnest. We had previously thrown up a mud rampart aroundit, and loop-holed the different outhouses, so that we had nothing nowto do, but to line the walls and shew determined fight. Theforty-third occupied the church-yard to our left, which was alsopartially fortified; and the third Cácadores and our third battalion, occupied the space between, behind the hedge-rows, while the fourthdivision was in readiness to support us from the rear. The enemy cameup to the opposite ridge, in formidable numbers, and began blazing atour windows and loop-holes, and shewing some disposition to attempt itby storm; but they thought better of it and withdrew their columns ashort distance to the rear, leaving the nearest hedge lined with theirskirmishers. An officer of ours, Mr. Hopewood, and one of ourserjeants, had been killed in the field opposite, within twenty yardsof where the enemy's skirmishers now were. We were very anxious to getpossession of their bodies, but had not force enough to effect it. Several French soldiers came through the hedge, at different times, with the intention, as we thought, of plundering, but our men shotevery one who attempted to go near them, until towards evening, when aFrench officer approached, waving a white handkerchief and pointing tosome of his men who were following him with shovels. Seeing that hisintention was to bury them, we instantly ceased firing, nor did werenew it again that night. The forty-third, from their post at the church, kept up an incessantshower of musketry the whole of the day, at what was conceived, at thetime, to be a very long range; but from the quantity of balls whichwere afterwards found sticking in every tree, where the enemy stood, it was evident that their birth must have been rather uncomfortable. One of our officers, in the course of the day, had been passingthrough a deep road-way, between two banks, with hedge-rows, when, tohis astonishment, a dragoon and his horse tumbled heels over head intothe road, as if they had been fired out of a cloud. Neither of themwere the least hurt; but it must have been no joke that tempted him totake such a flight. Soult expected, by bringing his whole force to bear on our centre andleft wing, that he would have succeeded in forcing it, or, at allevents, of obliging Lord Wellington to withdraw Sir Rowland Hill frombeyond the Nive; but he effected neither, and darkness left the twoarmies on the ground which they had fought on. General Alten and Sir James Kempt took up their quarters with us inthe chateau: our sentries and those of the enemy stood withinpistol-shot of each other in the ravine below. Young Arcangues, I presume, must have been rather disappointed at theresult of the day; for, even giving him credit for every kindlyfeeling towards us, his wishes must still have been in favour of hiscountrymen; but when he found that his chateau was to be a bone ofcontention, it then became his interest that we should keep possessionof it; and he held out every inducement for us to do so; which, by theby, was quite unnecessary, seeing that our own comfort so muchdepended on it. However, though his supplies of claret had failed somedays before, he now discovered some fresh cases in the cellar, whichhe immediately placed at our disposal; and, that our dire resolve todefend the fortress should not be melted by weak woman's wailings, hefixed an arm-chair on a mule, mounted his grandmother on it, and senther off to the rear, while the balls were whizzing about theneighbourhood in a manner to which even she, poor old lady, was notaltogether insensible, though she had become a mounted heroine at aperiod when she had given up all idea of ever sitting on any thingmore lively than a coffin. During the whole of the 11th each army retained the same ground, andthough there was an occasional exchange of shots at different points, yet nothing material occurred. The enemy began throwing up a six-gun battery opposite our chateau;and we employed ourselves in strengthening the works, as aprecautionary measure, though we had not much to dread from it, asthey were so strictly within range of our rifles, that he must havebeen a lucky artilleryman who stood there to fire a second shot. In the course of the night a brigade of Belgians, who were with theFrench army, having heard that their country had declared for theirlegitimate king, passed over to our side, and surrendered. On the 12th there was heavy firing and hard fighting, all day, to ourleft, but we remained perfectly quiet. Towards the afternoon, SirJames Kempt formed our brigade, for the purpose of expelling the enemyfrom the hill next the chateau, to which he thought them rather toonear; but, just as we reached our different points for commencing theattack, we were recalled, and nothing further occurred. I went, about one o'clock in the morning, to visit our differentpiquets; and seeing an unusual number of fires in the enemy's lines, Iconcluded that they had lit them to mask some movement; and taking apatrole with me, I stole cautiously forward, and found that they hadleft the ground altogether. I immediately returned, and reported thecircumstance to General Alten, who sent off a despatch to apprize LordWellington. As soon as day began to dawn, on the morning of the 13th, a tremendousfire of artillery and musketry was heard to our right. Soult hadwithdrawn every thing from our front in the course of the night, andhad now attacked Sir Rowland Hill with his whole force. LordWellington, in expectation of this attack, had, last night, reinforcedSir Rowland Hill with the sixth division; which enabled him to occupyhis contracted position so strongly, that Soult, unable to bring morethan his own front to bear upon him, sustained a signal and sanguinarydefeat. Lord Wellington galloped into the yard of our chateau, soon after theattack had commenced, and demanded, with his usual quickness, what wasto be seen? Sir James Kempt, who was spying at the action from anupper window, told him; and, after desiring Sir James to order SirLowry Cole to follow him with the fourth division, he galloped off tothe scene of action. In the afternoon, when all was over, he called inagain, on his return to head-quarters, and told us, "that it was themost glorious affair that he had ever seen; and that the enemy hadabsolutely left upwards of five thousand men, killed and wounded, onthe ground. " This was the last action in which we were concerned, near Bayonne. Theenemy seemed quite satisfied with what they had got; and offered us nofurther molestation, but withdrew within their works. CHAP. XVIII. Change of Quarters. Change of Diet. Suttlers. Our new Quarter. A long-going Horse gone. New Clothing. Adam's lineal Descendants. St. Palais. Action at Tarbes. Faubourg of Toulouse. The green Man. Passage of the Garonne. Battle of Toulouse. Peace. Castle Sarrazin. A tender Point. Towards the end of the month, some divisions of the French army havingleft Bayonne, and ascended the right bank of the Adour, it produced acorresponding movement on our side, by which our division thenoccupied Ustaritz, and some neighbouring villages; a change ofquarters we had no reason to rejoice in. At Arcangues, notwithstanding the influence of our messmate, "theSeigneur du Village, " our table had, latterly, exhibited gradualsymptoms of decay. But _here_, our voracious predecessors had notonly swallowed the calf, but the cow, and, literally, left us nothing;so that, from an occasional turkey, or a pork-pie, we were now, all atonce, reduced to our daily ration of a withered pound of beef. A greatmany necessaries of life could certainly be procured from St. Jean deLuz, but the prices there were absolutely suicidical. The suttlers'shops were too small to hold both their goods and their consciences;so that, every pin's worth they sold cost us a dollar; and as everydollar cost us seven shillings, they were, of course, not so plenty asbad dinners. I have often regretted that the enemy never got anopportunity of having the run of their shops for a few minutes, thatthey might have been, in some measure, punished for their sins, evenin this world. The house that held our table, too, was but a wretched apology for theone we had left. A bitter wind continued to blow; and as the granaryof a room which we occupied, on the first floor, had no fire-place, weimmediately proceeded to provide it with one, and continued fillingit up with such a load of bricks and mortar that the first floor wason the point of becoming the ground one; and, having only a choice ofevils, on such an emergency, we, as usual, adopted that which appearedto us to be the least, cutting down the only two fruit-trees in thegarden to prop it up with. We were rather on doubtful terms with thelandlord before, but this put us all square--no terms at all. Our animals, too, were in a woful plight, for want of forage. We wereobliged to send our baggage ones, every week, for their rations ofcorn, three days' march, through oceans of mud, which ought, properly, to have been navigated with boats. The whole cavalcade always movedunder the charge of an officer, and many were the anxious looks thatwe took with our spy-glasses, from a hill overlooking the road, on thedays of their expected return, each endeavouring to descry his own. Mine came back to me twice; but "the pitcher that goes often to thewell" was verified in his third trip, for--he perished in a muddygrave. His death, however, was not so unexpected as it might have been, for, although I cannot literally say that he had been dying by inches, seeing that he had walked all the way from the frontiers of Portugal, yet he had, nevertheless, been doing it on the grand scale--by miles. I only fell in with him the day before the commencement of thecampaign, and, after reconnoitring him with my usual judgement, andseeing that he was in possession of the regulated quantity of eyes, legs, and mouth, and concluding that they were all calculated toperform their different functions, I took him, as a man does his wife, for better and for worse; and it was not until the end of the firstday's march that I found he had a broken jaw-bone, and could not eat, and I had, therefore, been obliged to support him all along on spoondiet; he was a capital horse, only for that! It has already been written, in another man's book, that we alwaysrequire just a little more than we have got to make us perfectlyhappy; and, as we had given this neighbourhood a fair trial, and _thatlittle_ was not to be found in it, we were very glad when, towards theend of February, we were permitted to look for it a little further on. We broke up from quarters on the 21st, leaving Sir John Hope, with theleft wing of the army, in the investment of Bayonne, Lord Wellingtonfollowed Soult with the remainder. The new clothing for the different regiments of the army had, in themean time, been gradually arriving at St. Jean de Luz; and, as thecommissariat transport was required for other purposes, not to mentionthat a man's new coat always looks better on his own back than it doeson a mule's, the different regiments marched there for it insuccession. It did not come to our turn until we had taken a stride tothe front, as far as La Bastide; our retrograde movement, therefore, obliged us to bid adieu to our division for some time. On our arrival at St. Jean de Luz, we found our new clothing, and somenew friends in the family of our old friend, Arcangues, which was oneof the most respectable in the district, and who showed us a greatdeal of kindness. As it happened to be the commencement of Lent, theyoung ladies were, at first, doubtful as to the propriety of joiningus in any of the gaieties; but, after a short consultation, theyarranged it with their consciences, and joined in the waltz rightmerrily. Mademoiselle was really an exceedingly nice girl, and themost lively companion in arms (in a waltz) that I ever met. Our clothing detained us there two days; on the third, we proceeded torejoin the division. The pride of ancestry is very tenaciously upheld among the Basques, who are the mountaineers of that district. I had a fancy that most ofthem grew wild, like their trees, without either fathers or mothers, and was, therefore, much amused, one day, to hear a fellow, with a TamO'Shanter's bonnet, and a pair of bare legs, tracing his descent fromthe first man, and maintaining that he spoke the same language too. He might have added, if further proof were wanting, that he, also, wore the same kind of shoes and stockings. On the 27th February, 1814, we marched, all day, to the tune of acannonade; it was the battle of Orthes; and, on our arrival, in theevening, at the little town of St. Palais, we were very much annoyedto find the seventy-ninth regiment stationed there, who handed us ageneral order, desiring that the last-arrived regiment should relievethe preceding one in charge of the place. This was the more vexatious, knowing that there was no other regiment behind to relieve us. It wasa nice little town, and we were treated, by the inhabitants, likefriends and allies, experiencing much kindness and hospitality fromthem; but a rifleman, in the rear, is like a fish out of the water; hefeels that he is not in his place. Seeing no other mode of obtaining arelease, we, at length, began detaining the different detachments whowere proceeding to join their regiments, with a view of forming abattalion of them; but, by the time that we had collected asufficient number for that purpose, we received an order, fromhead-quarters, to join the army; when, after a few days' forcedmarches, we had, at length, the happiness of overtaking our division ashort distance beyond the town of Aire. The battle of Orthes was theonly affair of consequence that had taken place during our absence. We remained stationary, near Aire, until the middle of March, when thearmy was again put in motion. On the morning of the 19th, while we were marching along the road, near the town of Tarbes, we saw what appeared to be a small piquet ofthe enemy, on the top of a hill to our left, looking down upon us, when a company of our second battalion was immediately sent todislodge them. The enemy, however, increased in number, in proportionto those sent against them, until not only the whole of the second, but our own, and the third battalion were eventually brought intoaction; and still we had more than double our number opposed to us;but we, nevertheless, drove them from the field with great slaughter, after a desperate struggle of a few minutes, in which we had elevenofficers killed and wounded. As this fight was purely a rifle one, andtook place within sight of the whole army, I may be justified ingiving the following quotation from the author of "Twelve Years'Military Adventure, " who was a spectator, and who, in allusion to thisaffair, says, "Our rifles were immediately sent to dislodge the Frenchfrom the hills on our left, and our battalion was ordered to supportthem. Nothing could exceed the manner in which the ninety-fifth setabout the business. .. . Certainly I never saw such skirmishers as theninety-fifth, now the rifle brigade. They could do the work muchbetter and with infinitely less loss than any other of our best lighttroops. They possessed an individual boldness, a mutual understanding, and a quickness of eye, in taking advantage of the ground, which, taken altogether, I never saw equalled. They were, in fact, as muchsuperior to the French _voltigeurs_, as the latter were to ourskirmishers in general. As our regiment was often employed insupporting them, I think I am fairly qualified to speak of theirmerits. " We followed the enemy until dark, when, after having taken up ourground and lit our fires, they rather maliciously opened a cannonadeupon us; but, as few of their shots took effect, we did not putourselves to the inconvenience of moving, and they soon desisted. We continued in pursuit daily, until we finally arrived on the banksof the Garonne, opposite Toulouse. The day after our arrival anattempt was made, by our engineers, to throw a bridge across theriver, above the town; and we had assembled one morning, to be inreadiness to pass over, but they were obliged to abandon it for wantof the necessary number of pontoons, and we returned again toquarters. We were stationed, for several days, in the suburb of St. Ciprien, where we found ourselves exceedingly comfortable. It consisted chieflyof the citizens' country houses, and an abundance of the public teaand fruit accommodations, with which every large city is surrounded, for the temptation of Sunday parties; and, as the inhabitants had allfled hurriedly into town, leaving their cellars, generally speaking, well stocked with a tolerable kind of wine, we made ourselves at home. It was finally determined that the passage of the river should betried below the town, and, preparatory thereto, we took ground to ourleft, and got lodged in the chateau of a rich old West-India-man. Hewas a tall ramrod of a fellow, upwards of six feet high, withered to acinder, and had a pair of green eyes, which looked as if they belongedto somebody else, who was looking through his eye-holes; but, despitehis imperfections, he had got a young wife, and she was nursing ayoung child. The "Green Man" (as we christened him) was not, however, so bad as he looked; and we found our billet such a good one, thatwhen we were called away to fight, after a few days' residence withhim, I question, if left to our choice, whether we would not haverather remained where we were! A bridge having, at length, been established, about a league below thetown, two British divisions passed over; but the enemy, by floatingtimber and other things down the stream, succeeded in carrying one ortwo of the pontoons from their moorings, which prevented any more fromcrossing either that day or the succeeding one. It was expected thatthe French would have taken advantage of this circumstance, to attackthe two divisions on the other side; but they thought it more prudentto wait the attack in their own strong hold, and in doing so I believethey acted wisely, for these two divisions had both flanks secured bythe river, their position was not too extended for their numbers, andthey had a clear space in their front, which was flanked by artilleryfrom the commanding ground on our side of the river; so that, altogether, they would have been found ugly customers to any body whochose to meddle with them. The bridge was re-established on the night of the 9th, and, atdaylight next morning, we bade adieu to the _Green Man_, inviting himto come and see us in Toulouse in the evening. He laughed at the idea, telling us that we should be lucky fellows if ever we got in; and, atall events, he said, that he would bet a _déjeûné à la forchette_ fora dozen, that we did not enter it in three days from that time. I tookthe bet, and won, but the old rogue never came to pay me. We crossed the river, and advanced sufficiently near to the enemy'sposition to be just out of the reach of their fire, where we waiteduntil dispositions were made for the attack, which took place asfollows:-- Sir Rowland Hill, who remained on the left bank of the Garonne, made ashow of attacking the bridge and suburb of the town on that side. On our side of the river the Spanish army, which had never hithertotaken an active part in any of our general actions, now claimed thepost of honour, and advanced to storm the strongest part of theheights. Our division was ordered to support them in the low grounds, and, at the same time, to threaten a point of the canal; and Picton, who was on our right, was ordered to make a false attack on the canal. These were all that were visible to us. The remaining divisions of thearmy were in continuation to the left. The Spaniards, anxious to monopolize all the glory, I rather think, moved on to the attack a little too soon, and before the Britishdivisions on their left were in readiness to co-operate; however, bethat as it may, they were soon in a blaze of fire, and began walkingthrough it, at first, with a great show of gallantry anddetermination; but their courage was not altogether screwed up to thesticking point, and the nearer they came to the critical pass, theless prepared they seemed to meet it, until they all finally faced tothe right-about, and came back upon us as fast as their heels couldcarry them, pursued by the enemy. We instantly advanced to their relief, and concluded that they wouldhave rallied behind us; but they had no idea of doing any thing of thekind; for, when with _Cuesta_ and some of the other Spanish generals, they had been accustomed, under such circumstances, to run a hundredmiles at a time; so that, passing through the intervals of ourdivision, they went clear off to the rear, and we never saw them more. The moment the French found us interpose between them and theSpaniards they retired within their works. The only remark that Lord Wellington was said to have made on theirconduct, after waiting to see whether they would stand after they gotout of the reach of the enemy's shot, was, "well, d---- me, if ever Isaw ten thousand men run a race before!" However, notwithstandingtheir disaster, many of their officers certainly evinced greatbravery, and on their account it is to be regretted that the attackwas made so soon, for they would otherwise have carried their pointwith little loss, either of life or credit, as the British divisionson the left soon after stormed and carried all the other works, andobliged those who had been opposed to the Spaniards to evacuate theirswithout firing another shot. When the enemy were driven from the heights, they retired within thetown, and the canal then became their line of defence, which theymaintained the whole of the next day; but in the course of thefollowing night they left the town altogether, and we took possessionof it on the morning of the 12th. The inhabitants of Toulouse hoisted the white flag, and declared forthe Bourbons the moment that the French army had left it; and, in thecourse of the same day, Colonel Cooke arrived from Paris, with theextraordinary news of Napoleon's abdication. Soult has been accused ofhaving been in possession of that fact prior to the battle ofToulouse; but, to disprove such an assertion, it can only be necessaryto think, for a moment, whether he would not have made it public theday after the battle, while he yet held possession of the town, as itwould not only have enabled him to keep it, but, to those who knew nobetter, it might have given him a shadow of claim to the victory, ifhe chose to avail himself of it; and I have known a victory claimed bya French marshal on more slender grounds. In place of knowing it then, he did not even believe it now; and we were absolutely obliged tofollow him a day's march beyond Toulouse before he agreed to anarmistice. The news of the peace, at this period, certainly sounded as strangelyin our ears as it did in those of the French marshal, for it was achange that we never had contemplated. We had been born in war, rearedin war, and war was our trade; and what soldiers had to do in peace, was a problem yet to be solved among us. After remaining a few days at Toulouse, we were sent into quarters, inthe town of Castel-Sarazin, along with our old companions in arms, the fifty-second, to wait the necessary arrangements for our finalremoval from France. Castel-Sarazin is a respectable little town, on the right bank of theGaronne; and its inhabitants received us so kindly, that every officerfound in his quarter a family home. We there, too, found both the timeand the opportunity of exercising one of the agreeable professions towhich we had long been strangers, that of making love to the prettylittle girls with which the place abounded; when, after a threemonths' residence among them, the fatal order arrived for our march toBordeaux, for embarkation, the buckets full of salt tears that wereshed by men who had almost forgotten the way to weep was quiteridiculous. I have never yet, however, clearly made out whether peopleare most in love when they are laughing or when they are crying. Ourgreatest love writers certainly give the preference to the latter. _Scott_ thinks that "love is loveliest when it's bathed in tears;" and_Moore_ tells his mistress to "give smiles to those who love herless, but to keep her tears for him;" but what pleasure he can take inseeing her in affliction, I cannot make out; nor, for the soul of me, can I see why a face full of smiles should not be every bit asvaluable as one of tears, seeing that it is so much more pleasant tolook at. I have rather wandered, in search of an apology for my own countenancenot having gone into mourning on that melancholy occasion; for, totell the truth, (and if I had a visage sensible to such an impression, I should blush while I tell it, ) I was as much in love as any body, upnearly to the last moment, when I fell out of it, as it were, by amiracle; but, probably, a history of love's last look may beconsidered as my justification. The day before our departure, inreturning from a ride, I overtook my love and her sister, strolling bythe river's side, and, instantly dismounting, I joined in their walk. My horse was following, at the length of his bridle-reins, and, whileI was engaged in conversation with the sister, the other droppedbehind, and, when I looked round, I found her mounted _astride_ on myhorse! and with such a pair of legs, too! It was rather too good; and"Richard was himself again. " Although released, under the foregoing circumstances, from individualattachment, that of a general nature continued strong as ever; and, without an exception on either side, I do believe, that we parted withmutual regret, and with the most unbounded love and good feelingtowards each other. We exchanged substantial proofs of it whiletogether; we continued to do so after we had parted; nor were weforgotten when we were _no more_! It having appeared, in some of thenewspapers, a year afterwards, that every one of our officers had beenkilled at Waterloo, that the regiment had been brought out of theaction by a volunteer, and the report having come to the knowledge ofour Castel-Sarazin friends, they drew up a letter, which they sent toour commanding officer, signed by every person of respectability inthe place, lamenting our fate, expressing a hope that the reportmight have been exaggerated, and entreating to be informed as to theparticular fate of each individual officer, whom they mentioned byname. They were kind good-hearted souls, and may God bless them! CHAP. XIX. Commencement of the War of 1815. Embark for Rotterdam. Ship's Stock. Ship struck. A Pilot, a Smuggler, and a Lawyer. A Boat without Stock. Join the Regiment at Brussels. I have endeavoured, in this book of mine, to measure out the peace andwar in due proportions, according to the spirit of the times it speaksof; and, as there appears to me to be as much peace in the lastchapter as occurred in Europe between 1814 and 1815, I shall, with thereader's permission, lodge my regiment, at once, on Dover-heights, andmyself in Scotland, taking a shot at the last of the woodcocks, whichhappened to be our relative positions, when Bonaparte's escape fromElba once more summoned the army to the field. The first intimation I had of it was by a letter, informing me of theembarkation of the battalion for the Netherlands, and desiring me tojoin them there, without delay; and, finding that a brig was to sail, the following day, from Leith to Rotterdam, I took a passage on boardof her. She was an odd one to look at, but the captain assured me thatshe was a good one to go; and, besides, that he had provided everything that was elegant for our entertainment. The latter piece ofinformation I did not think of questioning until too late to profit byit, for I had the mortification to discover, the first day, that hiswhole stock consisted in a quarter of lamb, in addition to the ship'sown, with a few cabbages, and five gallons of whiskey. After having been ten days at sea, I was awoke, one morning beforedaylight, with the ship's grinding over a sand-bank, on the coast ofHolland; fortunately, it did not blow hard, and a pilot soon aftercame alongside, who, after exacting a reward suitable to theoccasion, at length, consented to come on board, and extricated usfrom our perilous situation, carrying the vessel into the entrance ofone of the small branches of the river leading up to Rotterdam, wherewe came to anchor. The captain was very desirous of appealing to amagistrate for a reduction in the exorbitant demand of the pilot; andI accompanied him on shore for that purpose. An Englishman made up tous at the landing-place, and said that his name was C----, that he hadmade his fortune by smuggling, and, though he was not permitted tospend it in his native country, that he had the greatest pleasure inbeing of service to his countrymen. As this was exactly the sort ofperson we were in search of, the Captain explained his grievance; andthe other said that he would conduct him to a gentleman who would soonput that to rights. We, accordingly, walked to the adjoining village, in one of the houses of which he introduced us, formally, to a tallDutchman, with a pipe in his mouth and a pen behind his ear, who, after hearing the story, proceeded to commit it, in large characters, to a quire of foolscap. The cautious nature of the Scotchman did not altogether like theappearance of the man of business, and demanding, through theinterpreter, whether there would be any thing to pay for hisproceedings? he was told that it would cost five guineas. "Fivedevils, " said Saunders; "What is it for?" "For a protest, " said theother. "D--n the protest, " said the captain; "I came here to save fiveguineas, and not to pay five more. " I could stand the scene no longer, and rushed out of the house, under the pretence of seeing the village;and on my return to the ship, half an hour afterwards, I found thecaptain fast asleep. I know not whether he swallowed the remainder ofthe five gallons of whiskey, in addition to his five-guinea grievance, but I could not shake him out of it, although the mate and I tried, alternately, for upwards of two hours; and indeed I never heardwhether he ever got out of it, --for when I found that they had to gooutside to find another passage up to Rotterdam, I did not think itprudent to trust myself any longer in the hands of such artists, and, taking leave of the sleeper, with a last ineffectual shake, I hired aboat to take me through the passage in which we then were. We started with a stiff fair wind, and the boatman assured me that weshould reach Rotterdam in less than five hours (forty miles); but itsoon lulled to a dead calm, which left us to the tedious operation oftiding it up; and, to mend the matter, we had not a fraction of moneybetween us, nor any thing to eat or drink. I bore starvation all thatday and night, with the most christian-like fortitude; but, the nextmorning, I could stand it no longer, and sending the boatman on shore, to a neighbouring house, I instructed him either to beg or stealsomething, whichever he should find the most prolific; but he was aclumsy hand at both, and came on board again with only a very smallquantity of coffee. It, however, afforded some relief, and in theafternoon we reached the town of Dort, and, on lodging my baggage inpawn with a French inn-keeper, he advanced me the means of going on toRotterdam, where I got cash for the bill which I had on a merchantthere. Once more furnished with the "sinews of war, " with my feet on_terra firma_, I lost no time in setting forward to Antwerp, and fromthence to Brussels, when I had the happiness of rejoining mybattalion, which was then quartered in the city. Brussels was, at this time, a scene of extraordinary preparation, fromthe succession of troops who were hourly arriving, and in theirformation into brigades and divisions. We had the good fortune to beattached to the brigade of our old and favourite commander, Sir JamesKempt, and in the fifth division, under Sir Thomas Picton. It was theonly division quartered in Brussels, the others being all towards theFrench frontier, except the Duke of Brunswick's corps, which lay onthe Antwerp road. CHAP. XX. Relative Situation of the Troops. March from Brussels. The Prince and the Beggar. Battle of Quatre-Bras. As our division was composed of crack regiments, under crackcommanders, and headed by fire-eating generals, we had little to dothe first fortnight after my arrival, beyond indulging in all theamusements of our delightful quarter; but, as the middle of Juneapproached, we began to get a little more on the _qui vive_, for wewere aware that Napoleon was about to make a dash at some particularpoint; and, as he was not the sort of general to give his opponent anidea of the when and the where, the greater part of our army wasnecessarily disposed along the frontier, to meet him at his ownplace. They were of course too much extended to offer effectualresistance in their advanced position; but as our division and theDuke of Brunswick's corps were held in reserve, at Brussels, inreadiness to be thrust at whatever point might be attacked, they werea sufficient additional force to check the enemy for the time requiredto concentrate the army. On the 14th of June it was generally known, among the military circlesin Brussels, that Buonaparte was in motion, at the head of his troops;and though his movement was understood to point at the Prussians, yethe was not sufficiently advanced to afford a correct clue to hisintentions. We were, the whole of the 15th, on the most anxious look out for newsfrom the front; but no report had been received prior to the hour ofdinner. I went, about seven in the evening, to take a stroll in thepark, and meeting one of the Duke's staff, he asked me, _en passant_, whether my pack-saddles were all ready? I told him that they werenearly so, and added, "I suppose they wo'n't be wanted, at all events, before to-morrow?" to which he replied, in the act of leaving me, "Ifyou have any preparation to make, I would recommend you not to delayso long. " I took the hint, and returning to quarters, remained inmomentary expectation of an order to move. The bugles sounded to armsabout two hours after. To the credit of our battalion, be it recorded, that, although thegreater part were in bed when the assembly sounded, and billetted overthe most distant parts of that extensive city, every man was on hisalarm-post before eleven o'clock, in a complete state of marchingorder: whereas, it was nearly two o'clock in the morning before wewere joined by the others. As a grand ball was to take place the same night, at the Duchess ofRichmond's, the order for the assembling of the troops was accompaniedby permission for any officer who chose to remain for the ball, provided that he joined his regiment early in the morning. Several ofours took advantage of it. Brussels was, at that time, thronged with British temporary residents;who, no doubt, in the course of the two last days, must have heard, through their military acquaintance, of the immediate prospect ofhostilities. But, accustomed, on their own ground, to hear of thosethings as a piece of news in which they were not personally concerned;and never dreaming of danger, in streets crowded with the gay uniformsof their countrymen; it was not until their defenders were summoned tothe field, that they were fully sensible of their changedcircumstances; and the suddenness of the danger multiplying itshorrors, many of them were now seen running about in the wildest stateof distraction. Waiting for the arrival of the other regiments, we endeavoured tosnatch an hour's repose on the pavement; but we were every instantdisturbed, by ladies as well as gentlemen; some stumbling over us inthe dark--some shaking us out of our sleep, to be told the news--andnot a few, conceiving their immediate safety depending upon ourstanding in place of lying. All those who applied for the benefit ofmy advice, I recommended to go home to bed, to keep themselvesperfectly cool, and, to rest assured that, if their departure from thecity became necessary, (which I very much doubted, ) they would have atleast one whole day to prepare for it, as we were leaving some beefand potatoes behind us, for which, I was sure, we would fight, ratherthan abandon! The whole of the division having, at length, assembled, we were put inmotion about three o'clock on the morning of the 16th, and advanced tothe village of Waterloo, where, forming in a field adjoining the road, our men were allowed to prepare their breakfasts. I succeeded ingetting mine, in a small inn, on the left hand side of the village. Lord Wellington joined us about nine o'clock; and, from his veryparticular orders, to see that the roads were kept clear of baggage, and everything likely to impede the movements of the troops, I havesince been convinced that his lordship had thought it probable thatthe position of Waterloo might, even that day, have become the sceneof action; for it was a good broad road, on which there were neitherthe quantity of baggage nor of troops moving at the time, to excitethe slightest apprehension of confusion. Leaving us halted, hegalloped on to the front, followed by his staff; and we were soonafter joined by the Duke of Brunswick, with his corps of the army. His highness dismounted near the place where I was standing, andseated himself on the road-side, along with his adjutant-general. Hesoon after despatched his companion on some duty; and I was muchamused to see the vacated place immediately filled by an oldbeggar-man; who, seeing nothing in the black hussar uniform beside himdenoting the high rank of the wearer, began to grunt and scratchhimself most luxuriously! The duke shewed a degree of courage whichfew would, under such circumstances; for he maintained his post untilthe return of his officer, when he very jocularly said, "Well, O----n, you see that your place was not long unoccupied!"--How little idea hadI, at the time, that the life of the illustrious speaker was limitedto three short hours! About twelve o'clock an order arrived for the troops to advance, leaving their baggage behind; and though it sounded warlike, yet wedid not expect to come in contact with the enemy, at all events, on_that_ day. But, as we moved forward, the symptoms of their immediatepresence kept gradually increasing; for we presently met a cart-loadof wounded Belgians; and, after passing through Genappe, the distantsound of a solitary gun struck on the listening ear. But all doubt onthe subject was quickly removed; for, on ascending the rising ground, where stands the village of Quatre Bras, we saw a considerable plainin our front, flanked on each side by a wood; and on another acclivitybeyond, we could perceive the enemy descending towards us, in mostimposing numbers. Quatre Bras, at that time, consisted of only three or four houses;and, as its name betokens, I believe, stood at the junction of fourroads; on one of which we were moving; a second, inclined to theright; a third, in the same degree, to the left; and the fourth, Iconclude, must have gone backwards; but, as I had not an eye in thatdirection, I did not see it. The village was occupied by some Belgians, under the Prince of Orange, who had an advanced post in a large farm-house, at the foot of theroad, which inclined to the right; and a part of his division, also, occupied the wood on the same side. Lord Wellington, I believe, after leaving us at Waterloo, galloped onto the Prussian position at Ligny, where he had an interview withBlucher, in which they concerted measures for their mutualco-operation. When we arrived at Quatre Bras, however, we found him ina field near the Belgian outpost; and the enemy's guns were justbeginning to play upon the spot where he stood, surrounded by anumerous staff. We halted for a moment on the brow of the hill; and as Sir AndrewBarnard galloped forward to the head-quarter group, I followed, to bein readiness to convey any orders to the battalion. The moment weapproached, Lord Fitzroy Somerset, separating himself from the duke, said, "Barnard, you are wanted instantly; take your battalion andendeavour to get possession of that village, " pointing to one on theface of the rising ground, down which the enemy were moving; "but ifyou cannot do that, secure that wood on the left, and keep the roadopen for communication with the Prussians. " We instantly moved in thegiven direction; but, ere we had got half-way to the village, we hadthe mortification to see the enemy throw such a force into it, asrendered any attempt to retake it, with our numbers, utterly hopeless;and as another strong body of them were hastening towards the wood, which was the second object pointed out to us, we immediately broughtthem to action, and secured it. In moving to that point, one of ourmen went raving mad, from excessive heat. The poor fellow cut a fewextraordinary capers, and died in the course of a few minutes. While our battalion-reserve occupied the front of the wood, ourskirmishers lined the side of the road, which was the Prussian line ofcommunication. The road itself, however, was crossed by such a showerof balls, that none but a desperate traveller would have undertaken ajourney on it. We were presently reinforced by a small battalion offoreign light troops, with whose assistance we were in hopes to havedriven the enemy a little further from it; but they were a raw body ofmen, who had never before been under fire; and, as they could not beprevailed upon to join our skirmishers, we could make no use of themwhatever. Their conduct, in fact, was an exact representation ofMathews's ludicrous one of the American militia, for Sir AndrewBarnard repeatedly pointed out to them which was the French, andwhich our side; and, after explaining that they were not to fire ashot until they joined our skirmishers, the word "March!" was given;but _march_, to them, was always the signal to fire, for they stoodfast, and began blazing away, chiefly at our skirmishers too; theofficers commanding whom were every time sending back to say that wewere shooting them; until we were, at last, obliged to be satisfiedwith whatever advantages their appearance could give, as even that wasof some consequence, where troops were so scarce. Buonaparte's attack on the Prussians had already commenced, and thefire of artillery and musketry, in that direction, was tremendous; butthe intervening higher ground prevented us from seeing any part of it. The plain to our right, which we had just quitted, had, likewise, become the scene of a sanguinary and unequal contest. Our division, after we left it, deployed into line, and, in advancing, met androuted the French infantry; but, in following up their advantage, they encountered a furious charge of cavalry, and were obliged tothrow themselves into squares to receive it. With the exception of oneregiment, however, which had two companies cut to pieces, they werenot only successful in resisting the attack, but made awful havock inthe enemy's ranks, who, nevertheless, continued their forward career, and went sweeping past them, like a whirlwind, up to the village ofQuatre Bras, to the confusion and consternation of the numeroususeless appendages of our army, who were there assembled, waiting theresult of the battle. The forward movement of the enemy's cavalry gave their infantry timeto rally; and, strongly reinforced with fresh troops, they againadvanced to the attack. This was a crisis in which, according toBuonaparte's theory, the victory was theirs, by all the rules of war, for they held superior numbers, both before and behind us; but thegallant old Picton, who had been trained in a different school, didnot choose to confine himself to rules in those matters; despisingthe force in his rear, he advanced, charged, and routed those in hisfront, which created such a panic among the others, that they gallopedback through the intervals in his division, with no other object inview but their own safety. After this desperate conflict, the firing, on both sides, lulled almost to a calm for nearly an hour, while eachwas busy in renewing their order of battle. The Duke of Brunswick hadbeen killed early in the action, endeavouring to rally his youngtroops, who were unable to withstand the impetuosity of the French;and, as we had no other cavalry force in the field, the few Britishinfantry regiments present, having to bear the full brunt of theenemy's superior force of both arms, were now considerably reduced innumbers. The battle, on the side of the Prussians, still continued to rage inan unceasing roar of artillery. About four, in the afternoon, a troopof their dragoons came, as a patrole, to inquire how it fared with us, and told us, in passing, that they still maintained their position. Their day, however, was still to be decided, and, indeed, for thatmatter, so was our own; for, although the firing, for the moment, hadnearly ceased, I had not yet clearly made up my mind which side hadbeen the offensive, which the defensive, or which the winning. I hadmerely the satisfaction of knowing that we had not lost it; for we hadmet fairly in the middle of a field, (or, rather unfairly, consideringthat they had two to one, ) and, after the scramble was over, ourdivision still held the ground they fought on. All doubts on thesubject, however, began to be removed about five o'clock. The enemy'sartillery once more opened; and, on running to the brow of the hill, to ascertain the cause, we perceived our old light-division general, Count Alten, at the head of a fresh British division, moving gallantlydown the road towards us. It was, indeed, a joyful sight; for, asalready mentioned, our division had suffered so severely that we couldnot help looking forward to a renewal of the action, with such adisparity of force, with considerable anxiety; but this reinforcementgave us new life, and, as soon as they came near enough to affordsupport, we commenced the offensive, and, driving in the skirmishersopposed to us, succeeded in gaining a considerable portion of theposition originally occupied by the enemy, when darkness obliged us todesist. In justice to the foreign battalion, which had been all dayattached to us, I must say that, in this last movement, they joined uscordially, and behaved exceedingly well. They had a very gallant youngfellow at their head; and their conduct, in the earlier part of theday, can, therefore, only be ascribed to its being their firstappearance on such a stage. Leaving General Alten in possession of the ground which we hadassisted in winning, we returned in search of our division, andreached them about eleven at night, lying asleep in their glory, onthe field where they had fought, which contained many a bloody traceof the day's work. The firing, on the side of the Prussians, had altogether ceasedbefore dark, but recommenced, with redoubled fury, about an hourafter; and it was then, as we afterwards learnt, that they lost thebattle. We lay down by our arms, near the farm-house already mentioned, infront of Quatre Bras; and the deuce is in it if we were not in goodtrim for sleeping, seeing that we had been either marching or fightingfor twenty-six successive hours. An hour before daybreak, next morning, a rattling fire of musketryalong the whole line of piquets made every one spring to his arms; andwe remained looking as fierce as possible until daylight, when eachside was seen expecting an attack, while the piquets were blazing atone another without any ostensible cause: it gradually ceased, as theday advanced, and appeared to have been occasioned by a patrole ofdragoons getting between the piquets by accident: when firingcommences in the dark it is not easily stopped. June 17th. --As last night's fighting only ceased with the daylight, the scene, this morning, presented a savage unsettled appearance; thefields were strewed with the bodies of men, horses, torn clothing, andshattered cuirasses; and, though no movements appeared to be going onon either side, yet, as occasional shots continued to be exchanged atdifferent points, it kept every one wide awake. We had thesatisfaction of knowing that the whole of our army had assembled onthe hill behind in the course of the night. About nine o'clock, we received the news of Blucher's defeat, and ofhis retreat to Wavre. Lord Wellington, therefore, immediately began towithdraw his army to the position of Waterloo. Sir Andrew Barnard was ordered to remain as long as possible with ourbattalion, to mask the retreat of the others; and was told, if we wereattacked, that the whole of the British cavalry were in readiness toadvance to our relief. I had an idea, however, that a single riflebattalion in the midst of ten thousand dragoons, would come butindifferently off in the event of a general crash, and was by nomeans sorry when, between eleven and twelve o'clock, every regimenthad got clear off, and we followed, before the enemy had put any thingin motion against us. After leaving the village of Quatre Bras, and passing through ourcavalry, who were formed on each side of the road, we drew up, at theentrance of Genappe. The rain, at that moment, began to descend intorrents, and our men were allowed to shelter themselves in thenearest houses; but we were obliged to turn out again in the midst ofit, in less than five minutes, as we found the French cavalry and oursalready exchanging shots, and the latter were falling back to the morefavourable ground behind Genappe; we, therefore, retired with them, _en masse_, through the village, and formed again on the rising groundbeyond. While we remained there, we had an opportunity of seeing the differentaffairs of cavalry; and it did one's heart good to see how cordiallythe life-guards went at their work: they had no idea of any thing butstraight-forward fighting, and sent their opponents flying in alldirections. The only _young_ thing they showed was in every one whogot a roll in the mud, (and, owing to the slipperiness of the ground, there were many, ) going off to the rear, according to their Hyde-Parkcustom, as being no longer fit to appear on parade! I thought, atfirst, that they had been all wounded, but, on finding how the casestood, I could not help telling them that theirs was now the situationto verify the old proverb, "the uglier the better soldier!" The roads, as well as the fields, had now become so heavy, that ourprogress to the rear was very slow; and it was six in the eveningbefore we drew into the position of Waterloo. Our battalion took postin the second line that night, with its right resting on theNamur-road, behind La Haye Sainte, near a small mud-cottage, which SirAndrew Barnard occupied as a quarter. The enemy arrived in front, inconsiderable force, about an hour after us, and a cannonade took placein different parts of the line, which ended at dark, and we lay downby our arms. It rained excessively hard the greater part of the night;nevertheless, having succeeded in getting a bundle of hay for myhorse, and one of straw for myself, I secured the horse to his bundle, by tying him to one of the men's swords stuck in the ground, and, placing mine under his nose, I laid myself down upon it, and neveropened my eyes again until daylight. CHAP. XXI. Battle of Waterloo. "A Horse! a Horse!" Breakfast. Position. Disposition. Meeting of _particular_ Friends. Dish of Powder and Ball. Fricassee of Swords. End of First Course. Pounding. Brewing. Peppering. Cutting and Maiming. Fury. Tantalizing. Charging. Cheering. Chasing. Opinionizing. Anecdotes. The End. BATTLE OF WATERLOO, 18th June, 1815. When I awoke, this morning, at daylight, I found myself drenched withrain. I had slept so long and so soundly that I had, at first, but avery confused notion of my situation; but having a bright idea that myhorse had been my companion when I went to sleep, I was ratherstartled at finding that I was now alone; nor could I rub my eyesclear enough to procure a sight of him, which was vexatious enough;for, independent of his value _as a horse_, his services wereindispensable; and an adjutant might as well think of going intoaction without his arms as without such a supporter. But whatever myfeelings might have been towards him, it was evident that he had nonefor me, from having drawn his sword and marched off. The chances offinding him again, amid ten thousand others, were about equal to theodds against the needle in a bundle of hay; but for once the singlechance was gained, as, after a diligent search of an hour, he wasdiscovered between two artillery horses, about half a mile from wherehe broke loose. The weather cleared up as the morning advanced; and, though everything remained quiet at the moment, we were confident that the daywould not pass off without an engagement, and, therefore, proceeded toput our arms in order, as, also, to get ourselves dried and made ascomfortable as circumstances would permit. We made a fire against the wall of Sir Andrew Barnard's cottage, andboiled a huge camp-kettle full of tea, mixed up with a suitablequantity of milk and sugar, for breakfast; and, as it stood on theedge of the high road, where all the big-wigs of the army had occasionto pass, in the early part of the morning, I believe almost every oneof them, from the Duke downwards, claimed a cupful. About nine o'clock, we received an order to retain a quantity of spareammunition, in some secure place, and to send every thing in the shapeof baggage and baggage-animals to the rear. It, therefore, becameevident that the Duke meant to give battle in his present position;and it was, at the same time, generally understood that a corps ofthirty thousand Prussians were moving to our support. About ten o'clock, an unusual bustle was observable among thestaff-officers, and we soon after received an order to stand to ourarms. The troops who had been stationed in our front during the nightwere then moved off to the right, and our division took up itsfighting position. Our battalion stood on what was considered the left centre of theposition. We had our right resting on the Namur-road, about a hundredyards in rear of the farm-house of La Haye Sainte, and our leftextending behind a broken hedge, which run along the ridge to theleft. Immediately in our front, and divided from La Haye Sainte onlyby the great road, stood a small knoll, with a sand-hole in itsfarthest side, which we occupied, as an advanced post, with threecompanies. The remainder of the division was formed in two lines; thefirst, consisting chiefly of light troops, behind the hedge, incontinuation from the left of our battalion reserve; and the second, about a hundred yards in its rear. The guns were placed in theintervals between the brigades, two pieces were in the road-way on ourright, and a rocket-brigade in the centre. The road had been cut through the rising ground, and was about twentyor thirty feet deep where our right rested, and which, in a manner, separated us from all the troops beyond. The division, I believe, under General Alten occupied the ground next to us, on the right. Hehad a light battalion of the German legion, posted inside of La HayeSainte, and the household brigade of cavalry stood under cover of therising ground behind him. On our left there were some Hanoverians andBelgians, together with a brigade of British heavy dragoons, theroyals, and Scotch greys. These were all the observations on the disposition of our army that mysituation enabled me to make. The whole position seemed to be a gentlyrising ground, presenting no obstacle at any point, excepting thebroken hedge in front of our division, and it was only one inappearance, as it could be passed in every part. Shortly after we had taken up our ground, some columns, from theenemy's left, were seen in motion towards Hugamont, and were soonwarmly engaged with the right of our army. A cannon ball, too, camefrom the Lord knows where, for it was not fired at us, and took thehead off our right hand man. That part of their position, in our ownimmediate front, next claimed our undivided attention. It had hithertobeen looking suspiciously innocent, with scarcely a human being uponit; but innumerable black specks were now seen taking post at regulardistances in its front, and recognizing them as so many pieces ofartillery, I knew, from experience, although nothing else was yetvisible, that they were unerring symptoms of our not being destined tobe idle spectators. From the moment we took possession of the knoll, we had busiedourselves in collecting branches of trees and other things, for thepurpose of making an _abatis_ to block up the road between that andthe farm-house, and soon completed one, which we thought lookedsufficiently formidable to keep out the whole of the French cavalry;but it was put to the proof sooner than we expected, by a troop of ourown light dragoons, who, having occasion to gallop through, astonishedus not a little by clearing away every stick of it. We had just timeto replace the scattered branches, when the whole of the enemy'sartillery opened, and their countless columns began to advance undercover of it. The scene at that moment was grand and imposing, and we had a fewminutes to spare for observation. The column destined as _our_particular _friends_, first attracted our notice, and seemed toconsist of about ten thousand infantry. A smaller body of infantry andone of cavalry moved on their right; and, on their left, another hugecolumn of infantry, and a formidable body of cuirassiers, while beyondthem it seemed one moving mass. We saw Buonaparte himself take post on the side of the road, immediately in our front, surrounded by a numerous staff; and eachregiment, as they passed him, rent the air with shouts of "_vivel'Empereur_, " nor did they cease after they had passed; but, backed bythe thunder of their artillery, and carrying with them the _rubidub_of drums, and the _tantarara_ of trumpets, in addition to theirincreasing shouts, it looked, at first, as if they had some hopes ofscaring us off the ground; for it was a singular contrast to the sternsilence reigning on our side, where nothing, as yet, but the voices ofour great guns, told that we had mouths to open when we chose to usethem. Our rifles were, however, in a very few seconds, required toplay their parts, and opened such a fire on the advancing skirmishersas quickly brought them to a stand still; but their columns advancedsteadily through them, although our incessant _tiralade_ was tellingin their centre with fearful exactness, and our post was quicklyturned in both flanks, which compelled us to fall back and join ourcomrades, behind the hedge, though not before some of our officers andtheirs had been engaged in personal combat. When the heads of their columns shewed over the knoll which we hadjust quitted, they received such a fire from our first line, that theywavered, and hung behind it a little; but, cheered and encouraged bythe gallantry of their officers, who were dancing and flourishingtheir swords in front, they at last boldly advanced to the oppositeside of our hedge, and began to deploy. Our first line, in the meantime, was getting so thinned, that Picton found it necessary to bringup his second, but fell in the act of doing it. The command of thedivision, at that critical moment, devolved upon Sir James Kempt, whowas galloping along the line, animating the men to steadiness. Hecalled to me by name, where I happened to be standing on the right ofour battalion, and desired "that I would never quit that spot. " I toldhim that "he might depend upon it:" and in another instant I foundmyself in a fair way of keeping my promise more religiously than Iintended; for, glancing my eye to the right, I saw the next fieldcovered with the cuirassiers, some of whom were making directly forthe gap in the hedge, where I was standing. I had not hitherto drawnmy sword, as it was generally to be had at a moment's warning; but, from its having been exposed to the last night's rain, it had now gotrusted in the scabbard, and refused to come forth! I was in aprecious scrape. Mounted on my strong Flanders mare, and with my goodold sword in my hand, I would have braved all the chances without amoment's hesitation; but, I confess, that I felt considerable doubtsas to the propriety of standing there to be sacrificed, without themeans of making a scramble for it. My mind, however, was happilyrelieved from such an embarrassing consideration, before my decisionwas required; for the next moment the cuirassiers were charged by ourhousehold brigade; and the infantry in our front giving way at thesame time, under our terrific shower of musketry, the flyingcuirassiers tumbled in among the routed infantry, followed by thelife-guards, who were cutting away in all directions. Hundreds of theinfantry threw themselves down, and pretended to be dead, while thecavalry galloped over them, and then got up and ran away. I never sawsuch a scene in all my life. Lord Wellington had given orders that the troops were, on no account, to leave the position to follow up any temporary advantage; so thatwe now resumed our post, as we stood at the commencement of thebattle, and with three companies again advanced on the knoll. I was told, it was very ridiculous, at that moment, to see the numberof vacant spots that were left nearly along the whole of the line, where a great part of the dark dressed foreign troops had stood, intermixed with the British, when the action began. Our division got considerably reduced in numbers during the lastattack; but Lord Wellington's fostering hand sent Sir John Lambert toour support, with the sixth division; and we now stood prepared foranother and a more desperate struggle. Our battalion had already lost three officers killed, and six or sevenwounded; among the latter were Sir Andrew Barnard and Colonel Cameron. Some one asking me what had become of my horse's ear, was the firstintimation I had of his being wounded; and I now found that, independent of one ear having been shaved close to his head, (Isuppose by a cannon-shot, ) a musket-ball had grazed across hisforehead, and another gone through one of his legs, but he did notseem much the worse for either of them. Between two and three o'clock we were tolerably quiet, except from athundering cannonade; and the enemy had, by that time, got the rangeof our position so accurately that every shot brought a ticket forsomebody's head. An occasional gun, beyond the plain, far to our left, marked theapproach of the Prussians; but their progress was too slow to afford ahope of their arriving in time to take any share in the battle. On our right, the roar of cannon and musketry had been incessant fromthe time of its commencement; but the higher ground, near us, prevented our seeing anything of what was going on. Between three and four o'clock, the storm gathered again in our front. Our three companies on the knoll were soon involved in a furiousfire. The Germans, occupying La Haye Sainte, expended all theirammunition, and fled from the post. The French took possession of it;and, as it flanked our knoll, we were obliged to abandon it also, andfall back again behind the hedge. The loss of La Haye Sainte was of the most serious consequence, as itafforded the enemy an establishment within our position. Theyimmediately brought up two guns on our side of it, and began servingout some grape to us; but they were so very near, that we destroyedtheir artillerymen before they could give us a second round. The silencing of these guns was succeeded by a very extraordinaryscene, on the same spot. A strong regiment of Hanoverians advanced inline, to charge the enemy out of La Haye Sainte; but they werethemselves charged by a brigade of cuirassiers, and, excepting oneofficer, on a little black horse, who went off to the rear, like ashot out of a shovel, I do believe that every man of them was put todeath in about five seconds. A brigade of British light dragoonsadvanced to their relief, and a few, on each side, began exchangingthrusts; but it seemed likely to be a drawn battle between them, without much harm being done, when our men brought it to a crisissooner than either side anticipated, for they previously had theirrifles eagerly pointed at the cuirassiers, with a view of saving theperishing Hanoverians; but the fear of killing their friends withheldthem, until the others were utterly overwhelmed, when they instantlyopened a terrific fire on the whole concern, sending both sides toflight; so that, on the small space of ground, within a hundred yardsof us, where five thousand men had been fighting the instant before, there was not now a living soul to be seen. It made me mad to see the cuirassiers, in their retreat, stooping andstabbing at our wounded men, as they lay on the ground. How I wishedthat I had been blessed with Omnipotent power for a moment, that Imight have blighted them! The same field continued to be a wild one the whole of the afternoon. It was a sort of duelling-post between the two armies, every half-hourshowing a meeting of some kind upon it; but they never exceeded ashort scramble, for men's lives were held very cheap there. For the two or three succeeding hours there was no variety with us, but one continued blaze of musketry. The smoke hung so thick about, that, although not more than eighty yards asunder, we could onlydistinguish each other by the flashes of the pieces. A good many of our guns had been disabled, and a great many morerendered unserviceable in consequence of the unprecedented closefighting; for, in several places, where they had been posted but avery few yards in front of the line, it was impossible to work them. I shall never forget the scene which the field of battle presentedabout seven in the evening. I felt weary and worn out, less fromfatigue than anxiety. Our division, which had stood upwards of fivethousand men at the commencement of the battle, had gradually dwindleddown into a solitary line of skirmishers. The twenty-seventh regimentwere lying literally dead, in square, a few yards behind us. My horsehad received another shot through the leg, and one through the flap ofthe saddle, which lodged in his body, sending him a step beyond thepension-list. The smoke still hung so thick about us that we could seenothing. I walked a little way to each flank, to endeavour to get aglimpse of what was going on; but nothing met my eye except themangled remains of men and horses, and I was obliged to return to mypost as wise as I went. I had never yet heard of a battle in which every body was killed; butthis seemed likely to be an exception, as all were going by turns. Wegot excessively impatient under the tame similitude of the latter partof the process, and burned with desire to have a last thrust at ourrespective _vis-à-vis_; for, however desperate our affairs were, wehad still the satisfaction of seeing that theirs were worse. Sir JohnLambert continued to stand as our support, at the head of three goodold regiments, one dead (the twenty-seventh) and two living ones; andwe took the liberty of soliciting him to aid our views; but the Duke'sorders on that head were so very particular that the gallant generalhad no choice. Presently a cheer, which we knew to be British, commenced far to theright, and made every one prick up his ears;--it was Lord Wellington'slong wished-for orders to advance; it gradually approached, growinglouder as it grew near;--we took it up by instinct, charged throughthe hedge down upon the old knoll, sending our adversaries flying atthe point of the bayonet. Lord Wellington galloped up to us at theinstant, and our men began to cheer him; but he called out, "nocheering, my lads, but forward, and complete your victory!" This movement had carried us clear of the smoke; and, to people whohad been for so many hours enveloped in darkness, in the midst ofdestruction, and naturally anxious about the result of the day, thescene which now met the eye conveyed a feeling of more exquisitegratification than can be conceived. It was a fine summer's evening, just before sunset. The French were flying in one confused mass. British lines were seen in close pursuit, and in admirable order, asfar as the eye could reach to the right, while the plain to the leftwas filled with Prussians. The enemy made one last attempt at a standon the rising ground to our right of La Belle Alliance; but a chargefrom General Adams's brigade again threw them into a state ofconfusion, which was now inextricable, and their ruin was complete. Artillery, baggage, and every thing belonging to them, fell into ourhands. After pursuing them until dark, we halted about two milesbeyond the field of battle, leaving the Prussians to follow up thevictory. This was the last, the greatest, and the most uncomfortable heap ofglory that I ever had a hand in, and may the deuce take me if I thinkthat every body waited there to see the end of it, otherwise it nevercould have been so troublesome to those who did. We were, take us allin all, a very bad army. Our foreign auxiliaries, who constituted morethan half of our numerical strength, with some exceptions, were littlebetter than a raw militia--a body without a soul, or like an inflatedpillow, that gives to the touch, and resumes its shape again when thepressure ceases--not to mention the many who went clear out of thefield, and were only seen while plundering our baggage in theirretreat. Our heavy cavalry made some brilliant charges in the early part of theday; but they never knew when to stop, their ardour in following theiradvantages carrying them headlong on, until many of them "burnt theirfingers, " and got dispersed or destroyed. Of that gallant corps, the royal artillery, it is enough to say, thatthey maintained their former reputation--the first in the world--andit was a serious loss to us, in the latter part of the day, to bedeprived of this more powerful co-operation, from the causes alreadymentioned. The British infantry and the King's German legion continued theinflexible supporters of their country's honour throughout, and theirunshaken constancy under the most desperate circumstances showed that, though they might be destroyed, they were not to be beaten. If Lord Wellington had been at the head of his old Peninsula army, Iam confident that he would have swept his opponents off the face ofthe earth immediately after their first attack; but with such aheterogeneous mixture under his command, he was obliged to submit to alonger day. It will ever be a matter of dispute what the result of that day wouldhave been without the arrival of the Prussians: but it is clear to methat Lord Wellington would not have fought at Waterloo unless Blucherhad promised to aid him with 30, 000 men, as he required that numberto put him on a numerical footing with his adversary. It is certainthat the promised aid did not come in time to take any share whateverin the battle. It is equally certain that the enemy had, long before, been beaten into a mass of ruin, in condition for nothing but running, and wanting but an apology to do it; and I will ever maintain thatLord Wellington's last advance would have made it the same victory hada Prussian never been seen there. The field of battle, next morning, presented a frightful scene ofcarnage; it seemed as if the world had tumbled to pieces, andthree-fourths of every thing destroyed in the wreck. The groundrunning parallel to the front of where we had stood was so thicklystrewed with fallen men and horses, that it was difficult to stepclear of their bodies; many of the former still alive, and imploringassistance, which it was not in our power to bestow. The usual salutation on meeting an acquaintance of another regimentafter an action was to ask who had been hit? but on this occasion itwas "Who's alive?" Meeting one, next morning, a very little fellow, Iasked what had happened to them yesterday? "I'll be hanged, " says he, "if I know any thing at all about the matter, for I was all daytrodden in the mud and galloped over by every scoundrel who had ahorse; and, in short, that I only owe my existence to myinsignificance. " Two of our men, on the morning of the 19th, lost their lives by a verymelancholy accident. They were cutting up a captured ammunition-waggonfor firewood, when one of their swords striking against a nail, sent aspark among the powder. When I looked in the direction of theexplosion, I saw the two poor fellows about twenty or thirty feet upin the air. On falling to the ground, though lying on their backs orbellies, some extraordinary effort of nature, caused by the agony ofthe moment, made them spring from that position, five or six times, tothe height of eight or ten feet, just as a fish does when thrown onthe ground after being newly caught. It was so unlike a scene in reallife that it was impossible to witness it without forgetting, for amoment, the horror of their situation. I ran to the spot along with others, and found that every stitch ofclothes had been burnt off, and they were black as ink all over. Theywere still alive, and told us their names, otherwise we could not haverecognized them; and, singular enough, they were able to walk off theground with a little support, but died shortly after. Among other officers who fell at Waterloo, we lost one of the wildestyouths that ever belonged to the service. He seemed to have aprophetic notion of his approaching end, for he repeatedly told us, inthe early part of the morning, that he knew the devil would have himbefore night. I shall relate one anecdote of him, which occurred whilewe were in Spain. He went, by chance, to pass the day with twoofficers, quartered at a neighbouring village, who happened to be, that day, engaged to dine with the clergyman. Knowing their visitor'smischievous propensities, they were at first afraid to make him one ofthe party; but, after schooling him into a suitable propriety ofbehaviour, and exacting a promise of implicit obedience, they, atlast, ventured to take him. On their arrival, the ceremony ofintroduction had just been gone through, and their host seated at anopen window, when a favourite cat of his went purring about the younggentleman's boots, who, catching it by the tail, and giving it two orthree preparatory swings round his head, sent it flying out at thewindow where the parson was sitting, who only escaped it by suddenlystooping. The only apology the youngster made for his conduct was, "Egad, I think I astonished that fellow!" but whether it was the cator the parson he meant I never could learn. About twelve o'clock, on the day after the battle, we commenced ourmarch for Paris. I shall, therefore, leave my readers at Waterloo, inthe hope that, among the many stories of romance to which that and theother celebrated fields gave birth, the foregoing unsophisticated oneof an eye-witness may not have been found altogether uninteresting. THE END ERRATA. Page 7, line 13, _read_ "of lively. " Page 9, line 18, _read_ "reinforced" _instead of_ "reenforced. " Page 25, line 17, _read_ "her's" _instead of_ "hers. " Page 27, line 3, _read_ "with him!!!" Page 73, line 8, _read_ "when we" _instead of_ "when it. " Page 154, line 21, _read_ "17th" _instead of_ "19th. " Page 178, line 14, _read_ "re-crossed" _instead of_ "re-crosed. " Page 219, line 17, _read_ "held one side" _instead of_ "held on oneside. " Page 266, line 13, _read_ "dying state;" _instead of_ "dying; state. " Page 269, lines 14 and 15, _read_ "to remark in a French officer, occurred" _instead of_ "to remark was that of a French officer, whichoccurred. "