CHAPTER XLIV. OPERATIONS OF THE ANGLO-SICILIAN ARMY. RECOVERY OF ZARAGOZA. SIEGE OF ST. SEBASTIAN. BATTLES OF THE PYRENEES.

♦1813.♦

♦Expedition from Alicante.♦

It was part of Lord Wellington’s plan that Marshal Suchet should be engaged on the eastern coast by the Anglo-Sicilian army, and thus prevented from sending assistance to the French in Aragon and on the upper Ebro. His position upon the line of the Xucar was too strong to be attacked in front by the force under Sir John Murray’s command, or acting in concert with him; and a movement by Requeña and Utiel upon their right flank, and by Tortosa and Lerida towards the rear, seemed as hazardous as it would have been circuitous and difficult. A naval expedition remained for consideration; and if a vigorous attack were made either upon Tarragona or Rosas, Suchet’s attention must necessarily be drawn thither, so that he could give no aid to the armies in the north, and must leave the open part of the kingdom of Valencia to the Spaniards. Tarragona was preferred as the point of attack, and Sir ♦April 14.♦ John was instructed to embark with that view. If he should succeed in his attempt against that place, an establishment would be secured on the coast north of the Ebro, so as to open a communication with the Spanish army in Catalonia: but this was a question of time and means, and if Suchet should be strong enough in Catalonia to frustrate the attempt, Sir John was directed in that case to return immediately, and land as far north in the kingdom of Valencia as he could, ♦June.♦ and there join with the right of the Spanish armies, to assist them in profiting by the opportunity which Suchet’s absence and the withdrawal of a considerable part of his force from the Xucar might be expected to afford.

The expedition was to have been kept secret; but the preparations which were made at Alicante for the embarkation of a considerable corps could not be concealed, and Suchet was speedily informed of them. Already he had apprehended, by a movement of the Spaniards from La Mancha upon Cuenca, and of Villacampa from the frontiers of Aragon upon the upper Guadalaviar, that it was intended by a combined operation to compel him to evacuate Valencia; but as at that time Clausel’s activity relieved him from any inquietude with regard to Mina, he was enabled to withdraw a division from Aragon, and to place Pannetier’s brigade between Tortosa and Valencia, that he might direct it upon whatever point should be threatened, without leaving the line of the Xucar exposed.

♦Col de Balaguer taken by the Anglo-Sicilian army.♦

By the end of May the expedition, consisting of 700 cavalry, and 14,600 infantry, including Whittingham’s division of 5000, and above 4000 Italians, had embarked, and on the last day of that month the fleet, commanded by Rear-Admiral Hallowell, sailed from Alicante. It was seen from Valencia; and the French troops from the side of Tortosa were instructed to be ready for moving whithersoever the debarkation might call them. After a very favourable passage, the fleet anchored on the evening of the 2nd in the port of Salon, within sight of Tarragona. The soldiers who had been ordered to hold themselves in readiness to land were put into the boats, but the surf ran so high that Admiral Hallowell pronounced the attempt too dangerous, and therefore they returned to the ships. But before the fleet came to anchor a brigade, under Lieutenant-Colonel Prevost, was judiciously detached to get possession of the fort at Col de Balaguer, that point commanding the only road by which artillery could be brought to the relief of Tarragona. General Copons, who had been apprized of the expedition, occupied Reus at that time, and sent two battalions, at first, to co-operate in the attack upon this fort, and afterwards two more in consequence of some movements from Tortosa. The attack was vigorously pressed. On the 5th the place was battered in breach; on the 7th a magazine exploded; the garrison, consisting of 80 men, were intimidated by this, and the commandant capitulated. On this side, therefore, no succours could now reach Tarragona, which is about six leagues from Col de Balaguer, except by a circuitous march of three days, through a very difficult country: there was a pass indeed by which the place might be approached, but it was not practicable for artillery.

♦The expedition lands near Tarragona.♦

Meantime the debarkation had been effected on the 3rd, in broad day, and with an order, a precision, and a rapidity, peculiar to the English in their naval operations. Having reconnoitred the fortress, Sir John Murray determined upon ♦M. Suchet’s Mem. 2, 311.♦ attacking it on the western side, which was the weakest, and that on which stores might most conveniently be brought up to the batteries. General Bertoletti, who commanded in Tarragona, did not confine himself within the walls; he occupied the Fuerte Real, and the ruins of the bastion of St. Carlos, which, though, like all the external works, it had been demolished, presented still an imposing appearance; and great exertions were made for repairing it. These works were between 350 and 400 yards from the body of the place, to the southward, and nearer the sea, the approach being exceedingly difficult, and covered by the fire of the town. But they were thought to be the key of the place, and that if the besiegers could establish themselves there, Tarragona must fall in three days. Accordingly two batteries were begun on the evening of the 4th, and on the morning of the 6th they opened their fire with good effect; another was erected during the night, and on the morning of the 8th the commanding engineer reported that a practicable breach in the Fuerte Real had been made; but he requested that it might not be stormed, because its immediate possession could be turned to no account, and to retain it would cost the lives of many men. The fire therefore was continued only to prevent its re-establishment. Meantime, when the weather would permit, the artillery and engineer horses, and the cavalry and artillery stores, were landed, and the operations of the engineers were so far advanced that two heavy batteries were constructed to enfilade the place. The city was then summoned to surrender; but as none of the batteries were as yet within 500 yards of the place, and the fire of the besieged had been very superior to that of the besiegers, General Bertoletti would not listen to the summons. On the 11th, the commanding officer of engineers reported that he was perfectly prepared to push the siege with vigour; and according to Sir John Murray’s order, Major-General Sir William Clinton, who had that day been left in temporary command of the siege, resolved to storm the Fuerte Real at nine that night. Accordingly a disposition for the assault was made, and arrangements for distracting the enemy’s attention by a simultaneous show of attack along the whole of his front, aided from the side of the sea by the bomb-vessels and gun-boats.

Marshal Suchet meantime, leaving General Harispe with the command on the Xucar, had made for ♦Suchet’s movement for the relief of Tarragona.♦ Tortosa by forced marches with one division, his reserve, and a brigade of cavalry: and before his arrival he had dispatched orders for the garrison of that place to secure the Col de Balaguer; but the fort there was taken before any attempt to succour it was made, and he could therefore bring with him no artillery in his attempt to raise the siege of Tarragona. He had directed also Generals Decaen and Maurice Mathieu to march for the relief of the place. On the side of Tortosa all due precautions had been taken, by getting possession of the fort which absolutely commanded that singular pass. On the other side, Sir John Murray had ordered General Whittingham to see if the road could by any means be broken up or impeded, ... but in an open country this was found impracticable in any part, except at a point near the sea, and within two miles of Tarragona. When Whittingham was at Torre de Embarra upon this investigation, Manso, who had 2000 men at Vendrell, came there to inform him that Decaen, from Hostalric and the country beyond it, would arrive that night at Barcelona, where there would then be a force of 12,000 foot and 400 horse, disposable for the relief of Tarragona. This information General Whittingham communicated to Sir John Murray on the 9th, observing that the enemy might advance to succour that place, in two columns, one by the road along the coast, the other by the heights, upon the left of the besieging army; the Spanish division, which formed the left, would thus be exposed in flank to a superior force, and in a position that was commanded by the heights, and had the fortified city in its rear: and he suggested to Sir John that he should leave General Copons with the Catalan army to cover the siege, while he, with the British troops and the Majorcan division, marched immediately upon Villa Franca to attack Decaen; that General would have advanced beyond Villa Franca; victory, considering the number and the quality of the allied troops, would not be doubtful, and it would decide the contest in Catalonia; and after driving him from Molins de Rey, and destroying the stone bridge over the Llobregat, by which bridge alone artillery could be brought across that river, there would be time to return and encounter Marshal Suchet.

♦Sir John Murray raises the siege.♦

To this suggestion Sir John paid no regard; but late in the evening of the 11th, when every thing was ready for an immediate assault upon the Fuerte Real, he received intelligence that Suchet was advancing with 12,000 men from the side of Tortosa, and Decaen with 8000 from Barcelona; upon which he determined immediately to raise the siege, and with such haste as to abandon all the heavy artillery, ammunition, and stores that had been landed. He thought it would have been an useless waste of the lives of British soldiers to assault a work which, if carried, must, in his opinion, have been abandoned the next day: he placed no reliance upon the Spaniards under Copons, who had not more than 8500 disposable men, and those without pay, discipline, artillery, or means of subsisting, and whom he considered totally incapable of acting in the field. He distrusted his own foreign troops, who worked slowly at the siege, with great unwillingness, and with so little steadiness, that it had required an additional party of 200 British soldiers to carry to the batteries the ammunition which one of their parties threw away when they came under fire. The French too, he thought, had all advantages; they had fortresses in every direction to furnish them supplies, to retire upon if they wished to avoid an action till they could bring together more troops, or to cover them if they were defeated; whereas he was in the open field, without any point of support, or of retreat, except to the ships: and how serious an operation would it be to embark an army in an open bay, and on a beach where he had learned by experience that it was impossible to disembark in any but the lightest boats! Three days at least would be required to complete this re-embarkation. He decided, therefore, upon beginning it without delay.

Admiral Hallowell strongly remonstrated against abandoning the artillery, and engaged to bring off every thing, if Sir John would only give him the night from the 12th to the 13th; but that commander gave ear to less hopeful counsels, most unfortunately for himself. For public opinion loudly condemned his conduct; it became the subject of a court-martial; and though the sentence acquitted him upon all other charges, it pronounced that he had committed an error of judgment in abandoning his artillery, when it might have been brought off. The embarkation was commenced at daybreak. At first some of the valuable stores were sent off, but orders were given to abandon them. Great part of the infantry were put on board during the day in full view of the besieged, who crowded on the ramparts to behold what they were unable to understand. Sir John himself embarked early in the evening; but it was not till near midnight that the 1st division, under Sir William Clinton, who was left in command of the troops on shore, moved to the beach; and so completely were the enemy deceived as to its movements, by the piquets of this division having been kept at their advanced stations till darkness had closed, that not a man ventured without the walls, and not a shot was fired during the night, except from the ramparts, nor did any enemy show himself to molest the embarkation. The cavalry of the Majorcan division were embarked on the morning of the 13th, by means of a mole constructed for the purpose, about two leagues from the town; but the other cavalry and a great part of the field artillery were ordered by land to the Col de Balaguer, whither Sir John Murray repaired in the Bristol early on the 13th, and where the whole armament was directed to assemble.

♦Suchet approaches Col de Balaguer, and retires again.♦

While the allies were thus re-embarking with discreditable precipitance, two other armies thought it necessary in consequence of this movement to retreat also, in equal haste, ... General Copons from the vicinity of Reus to the mountains, lest he should be exposed to a combined attack from Decaen and the garrison of Tarragona; and Decaen himself to Barcelona, apprehending that the allies had raised the siege for the purpose of bringing him to action. On the evening of the 13th an enemy’s detachment was seen advancing by the piquets in front of the fort at Col de Balaguer, and judging that this might be the advance of Suchet’s force, Sir John ordered part of the infantry to be re-landed as it arrived from Tarragona, in order to cover the embarkation of the cavalry and field-artillery, which had reached that point in the course of the day. He was not mistaken in this judgment, ... Marshal Suchet having found the way by the mountains impracticable, thought to force his way by the Col, expecting to reduce the fort with as little difficulty as the allies had done; and on the 14th he presented himself there on the road from Tortosa with the main body of his army. He found a battalion in position covering the fort; but, to his astonishment, he also discovered the British fleet at anchor between the Col and Hospitalet. His light troops and skirmishers extended themselves along the hills, and approached within cannon-shot of the fort. But he found it impossible to advance, so completely was the road on that side commanded by the fort and by the judicious station taken by the ships of war, which could anchor there close to the shore; and it was equally impossible for an army to remain there many hours, there being no water within many miles. He found it necessary, therefore, to retire the same evening to the village of Perillo, not knowing what had occurred at Tarragona, alarmed as well as surprised at what he had seen, and holding himself prepared to follow the movements of the fleet.

♦June 15. Sir John re-lands the troops.♦

On the following morning he made a second movement on Valdellos, as if intending to attempt the mountain road. As soon as Sir John Murray was informed of this he apprehended that it was Suchet’s intention to turn the position which the allies occupied, and enter the plain of Tarragona in their rear; upon which the farther embarkation of the cavalry was suspended, and nearly the whole of the infantry were put on shore. He also sent a strong division, and all the cavalry, under Major-General Mackenzie, to observe the enemy’s motions, and attack them if they should attempt to press farther forward. They remained on the 16th nearly in the same position; but intelligence came that a column was in march from the side of Tarragona, and as this would have rendered General Mackenzie’s situation extremely critical, he was ordered to retire to Hospitalet, and accordingly retreated thither in the course of the night. Sir John now determined to take up a position in the plain, between the high ground of the Col and the sea, and this was done on the 17th. The left rested on the hills, which are almost inaccessible on that side; the ground in front, though level, was impracticable for cavalry, because it is intersected from the hills to the sea with gullies and deep ravines caused by the winter rains. The right extended to the shore, and was greatly protected by the gun-boats and the fire of the shipping. In this strong position he had resolved to wait the enemy’s attack, but in the forenoon it was ascertained that they had retired on both sides, Suchet toward Tortosa, and Decaen toward Barcelona, after throwing supplies into Tarragona. Sir John then assembled a council of war, in which it was concluded that as nothing farther in the way of offensive operations could be attempted by the army in its then state, and as no advantage could be expected from remaining where they were, and acting defensively, the most advisable measure was to re-embark and return to Alicante, there to re-equip the army.

♦Lord W. Bentinck takes the command.♦

In the afternoon of this busy day Lord William Bentinck, who had long been looked for, arrived from Sicily to take the command. The Mediterranean fleet, under Sir Edward Pellew, came with him, having quitted its station off Toulon in the hope of assisting the operations against Tarragona, either by its presence there, or by making a show of landing at and attacking Rosas. Lord William on assuming the command confirmed the opinion of the council of war, and ordered the troops to be immediately re-embarked. The weather being such as to raise a high surf, rendered this very difficult; nevertheless by great exertions on the part of the navy, every thing was got on board by ♦Fort at Col de Balaguer demolished.♦ the midnight of the 19th. At the same time the fort at Col de Balaguer, having been dismantled and ruined, was blown up; and on the ensuing day, Admiral Hallowell and the Anglo-Sicilian army made sail for Alicante from their bootless expedition, and Sir Edward Pellew returned with the Mediterranean fleet to his wonted station.

The explosion of the fort announced to the French that the English had abandoned all thought of any further operations in lower Catalonia, ... much to Marshal Suchet’s relief, who while they remained there deemed it necessary to observe their movements, and yet felt ♦Unsuccessful movements of the Spaniards in Valencia.♦ that he was wanted upon the Xucar. General Elio’s army, joined by that which Ballasteros had formerly commanded, but was now under the Duque del Parque, had endeavoured to take advantage of his absence with so large a part of his force. On the 11th they had attacked General Harispe’s rear-guard, under General Mesclop, when on the road from S. Philippe to its position on the Xucar, but were repulsed at the village of Rogla with some loss, and Elio himself was for a little while in the enemy’s hands, but he had the good fortune to escape without being recognized. The French then pursued their march without farther molestation to the bridge over the Xucar. On the 13th the Spaniards presented themselves in force there, and while a cannonade was kept up on that side, the Duque del Parque attacked Alcira by the two roads of Carcagente and of Gandia. General Habert let their principal column approach the suburb, then charged it at the moment when it began to deploy, threw it into confusion, routed it with the loss of 400 killed and more than 600 prisoners; and this in time for repairing to support his left on the Gandia road, and there also to defeat the assailants. Notwithstanding this success, General Harispe was far from feeling secure in his position. He informed Marshal Suchet that there were in his front not less than 28,000 of the least bad Spanish infantry, and from 2000 to 3000 cavalry in a good state; this, he said, the prisoners agreed in affirming, and the intelligence was not of a kind to make them feel more secure than they ought to be. The departure of the expedition from Balaguer Roads after the total failure of its object enabled the Marshal to hasten back towards the Xucar, and he did this with the more speed, because there was a report that its intention was to intercept him on his way to Valencia, by landing either at Puerto de los Alfaques, ♦The fleet suffers on its return to Alicante.♦ or at Castellon de la Plana. But the fleet had no other object in view than that of returning to Alicante, and in this it suffered much from storms. Eighteen transports were driven on the Alfaques; the troops were taken out, and fifteen of the vessels were got off, but the others were lost.

♦Suchet’s measures after the battle of Vittoria.♦

On landing at Alicante, Lord William received intelligence of the battle of Vittoria. Suchet had apprehended no such tidings. Buonaparte seems to have entertained till the last a blind persuasion that his schemes of ambition in Spain and every where else must finally be successful, and the instructions which he had sent to the Marshal were that he should endeavour to gain time, and lose no ground, till the affairs of the north should be finished, when, if it were then necessary, dispositions would be made in favour of the armies in Spain. The Marshal, however, knew that he must lose no time in retiring from Valencia; that province therefore was delivered by the battle of Vittoria, as Andalusia had been by the battle of Salamanca. He thought to retain upon it a hold which would enable him at any time to return by leaving a garrison of 1200 men in Murviedro, stored for twelve months, the place having been materially strengthened during the eighteen months which had elapsed since the French obtained possession of it: 500 men were also left in Peñiscola, 120 in Denia, and as many in Morella, that little fort commanding a mountain-road, by which a corps of infantry without cannon could at any time re-enter Valencia from Aragon. Looking forward therefore to the probable resumption of their conquests, with the hopefulness which characterizes the French character, and with the confidence which he might justly feel in his own ability of improving all circumstances to the best advantage, he commenced his retreat with the less reluctance because Clausel apprized him that he had arrived at Zaragoza with 14,000 men, and would establish himself ♦Suchet’s Mémoires, 2, 310–324.♦ upon the Gallego, in readiness either to co-operate with the army of Aragon, or with the Intruder, if the army on that side should resume the offensive.

♦Lord Wellington undertakes the siege of St. Sebastian.♦

A junction between Clausel and Suchet was what Lord Wellington apprehended as soon as he heard that the expedition against Tarragona had failed, and that consideration made him at once give up his intention of laying siege to Pamplona. Unwelcome as the tidings were, this change of purpose may have compensated for the failure, ... Pamplona ♦July.♦ being so much stronger than it was at that time supposed to be by the allies, and the British army still so defective in its engineer’s department, that the siege might probably have proved unsuccessful. Resorting therefore to the surer method of blockading a city, which there was reason to believe was not provided for a long siege, he intrusted that service to the Spaniards, and ordered works to be thrown up on every side, to prevent the escape of the garrison, and to cut them off from all supplies; and he determined to besiege St. Sebastian’s, where farther means of attack could be obtained by sea. The service was intrusted to Sir Thomas Graham, with 10,000 men.

♦Clausel retreats into France by way of Jaca.♦

But the failure in Catalonia was soon compensated by the events which took place in Aragon. Clausel, not waiting for Marshal Suchet’s movements, nor to consult with him, left his artillery at Zaragoza, and made for France by way of Jaca. The Spaniards supposed that his chief motive was the desire of securing the riches which he had amassed. Mina was marching upon the same point with a far inferior force, in the hope of intercepting some of this booty, when he ♦Duran invites Mina to act with him for the deliverance of Zaragoza.♦ received orders which suspended his progress. Duran at the same time, as commandant in Lower Aragon, was instructed to take such opportunity as might offer for acting against the enemy in Zaragoza. This veteran, who was then at Ricla, sent Colonel Tabuenca to inform Mina of Clausel’s retreat, and to confer with him upon a plan of speedy operations for the recovery of that capital, where there were no other troops remaining than a not numerous garrison, and against which he should immediately move. Tabuenca was then with his regiment at Borja; Mina was supposed to be at Gallud: not finding him there, Tabuenca hastened to Pedrola; but there he found D. Julian Sanchez, who directed him to look for Mina at Alagon; and from Alagon Cruchaga directed him to Las Casetas, and there at one in the morning Tabuenca arrived and found him. Upon delivering his dispatches, he stated that General Duran had selected him to be the bearer, because, being a native of Zaragoza, and having been present during both sieges, he could give him the fullest local information, upon which their combined operations might be concerted. Mina replied, that their forces were not sufficient for such an enterprise. He had approached the city, he said, upon an assurance that the enemy had evacuated it; but an intercepted letter had just been brought him, in which the governor, General Paris, ordered the garrisons on the left of the Ebro to maintain their posts, because succours were on the way to them from Marshal Suchet.

Tabuenca had not expected such a reply. He represented that the united force of the two divisions amounted to from 10,000 to 12,000 infantry, and 1500 horse; that the garrison did not at the utmost exceed 5000, including invalids; that when with that number so wide a circuit was to be covered, various false attacks might distract their attention, and an entrance be effected where they least apprehended it: and that when once the Spaniards should have set foot upon the walls, they might count upon as many brave soldiers as there were men of Zaragoza. The reinforcements which the governor looked for were, he said, far off, and could not, if time were made good use of, arrive till they would be useless. There was more reason to fear that Clausel might march back; but even in that case they could maintain themselves in Zaragoza. Paris could not defend the city, if he were vigorously assailed: and though he might bring off the garrison by the bridge over the Ebro, the French could not carry off their booty. Mina replied, that he had only three regiments of infantry on the right of the Ebro, and cavalry was of little use; but in the morning he expected information from the place, and would then determine whether to remain or to retire. Tabuenca observed, that the regiments on the left bank would not be useless if they were made to approach, and that the cavalry might be dismounted; and he requested him at least to bring down the regiments which he had at Alagon and Pedrola, that the enemy’s attention might thus be drawn toward Las Casetas, when Duran came with his division, as he would do, to Maria or Cadrete. To this Mina consented.

♦July 8.♦

Early in the morning, Tabuenca’s regiment, which had followed him, arrived at the Puente de la ♦Affair before Zaragoza.♦ Claveria, where he joined it, and proceeded on the right of the canal of Tauste toward the Puente de la Muela, meaning to give the men some rest there, while he went in search of Duran. They had scarcely been an hour upon the way, when a fire of musketry was heard on the left toward Las Casetas, and an orderly of Mina’s came in all haste to recall them, because the enemy had attacked him. Tabuenca, confiding in his own knowledge of the ground, represented to Mina, that instead of obeying this order, it would be better that he should occupy the Puente de la Muela, whereby he should divert the enemy’s attention, if, as might be expected, more troops should issue out, and at the same time secure that point in case Duran should make for it. Mina approved of this suggestion. The alarm had been occasioned by a body of horse, some 150 in number, who had been sent on an exploring party; they were charged by Mina’s cavalry, and compelled to retreat with all speed; but other bodies presently sallied to their support, and one of about 1000 foot and 100 horse made for the Puente de la Muela. Tabuenca, who had with him about 1400 men, quickened his pace and anticipated them; and seeing this they halted, hesitated, and then fell back. Their main force advanced against Mina upon the road to Las Casetas; troops also came to his support, and his men behaved with their wonted gallantry. The enemy were superior both in horse and foot, and when the body which had been disappointed in their intention of occupying the bridge of La Muela joined them, the Navarrese could with difficulty keep their ground; but Tabuenca hastening with part of his men, approached the enemy on their left flank, under cover of some olive yards, and opened upon them a fire as opportune as it was unexpected; taking advantage of the movement which this occasioned among them, Mina charged with such effect, that they retreated hastily till they were under the fire of their works. Mina then encamped his troops between the Casetas and the heights of La Bernardona, ... he had now with him 4000 foot and 1500 horse; and Tabuenca regarding this affair as a preliminary to the recovery of Zaragoza, ordered his regiment to march immediately upon the Casa Blanca and the Torrero, while he took the same course with the detachment which had been engaged. These posts, which had been so obstinately disputed in the former sieges, were abandoned by the French at their approach; and the Spaniards entered them, rejoicing in their success, and in being enabled to rest, after a march of four-and-twenty hours, during which they had had no other refreshment than a hasty meal at Grisen.

♦Second sally of the French.♦

Between four and five in the afternoon the French sallied a second time and in greater force. They attacked Mina’s division, which was supported by D. Julian Sanchez with his Castilian lancers; but while thus engaged, Tabuenca, leaving just troops enough in the works which he had taken to cover his retreat should that be necessary, attacked the enemy on their left and in their rear, and the result was that they were driven into the city, leaving some two hundred killed. Mina’s loss in killed and wounded amounted in ♦Duran arrives before the city.♦ the course of the day to 115; Tabuenca’s to 28. Duran arrived after the affair, just as evening was closing; that morning, as he was about to march from Muel for Cadrete, he was informed that a French detachment had gone from Zaragoza to bring off the garrison of Almunia which a party of his troops were blockading; and he was preparing to intercept them when a dispatch from Tabuenca made him hasten with all speed to the more important scene of action. Early on the morrow, Mina and Julian Sanchez came to confer with him in the Casa Blanca, and Duran proposed that they should assault the city on the following night: the wall, he said, might be escaladed at many points; the enemy’s attention might be distracted by false attacks, and they were sure of assistance from within. This veteran had frequently distinguished himself by assaulting towns that were imperfectly fortified; Mina was less accustomed to such service, and more disposed to watch for and profit by any opportunity that might be offered him in the field: he was of opinion that they ought to remain before the city and collect thither the remainder of their forces; and in that opinion he persisted when Duran on the following evening renewed the proposal: for he judged rightly, that by a little delay success would be rendered more certain, and obtained at less cost of life.

♦The French withdraw from Zaragoza.♦

D. Julian Sanchez removed with his lancers that evening to the Casa Blanca. The enemy allowed no one to go out of the gates: they had suffered too much in the two sallies of the preceding day to venture upon a third; and their vigilance was such that eager as the inhabitants were to communicate with those through whom they expected now to obtain the deliverance for which they so long offered up their prayers, they could convey no intelligence: neither, indeed, was it easy for them to determine what were the intentions of the French; for though they had their plunder packed up for removal and the carriages laden with it, and though they mined the stone bridge over the Ebro, they made at the same time other demonstrations, which were intended to show that it was not their purpose to abandon the city. A little before eight in the evening two guns were fired, which were the signal for a general movement, ... coaches, carts, and sumpter beasts were collected about the Puerta del Angel, and the troops began to file over the stone bridge. This movement was succeeded by stillness, and just before midnight the bridge was blown up. Duran was presently informed by his outposts where the explosion had been, and that the French had abandoned the city; immediately he sent D. Julian Sanchez and Tabuenca to ascertain what damage had been done to the bridge, and whether it were possible to pursue the enemy: he charged them also to give immediate directions for rendering it passable, and not to enter the city unless it should be absolutely necessary, nor suffer any soldier to enter it, that there might be no opportunity for any of those excesses which on such occasions were so likely to be committed; for the same purpose he posted guards at all the gates. The Ayuntamiento however deemed it best, that Sanchez should enter with his lancers, and with a patrol of the citizens maintain order: the principal streets were presently illuminated, the people waiting for no orders or concert, but acting with one common feeling; and the Coso was crowded to see the entrance of the deliverers.

Duran had lost no time in apprizing Mina of what had occurred, and requesting to see him that they might arrange their joint entrance. The Ayuntamiento, between one and two in the morning, came to the Casa Blanca, bringing the keys to Duran, and informing him that the enemy had left about 700 men in the Aljaferia, whose presence, they added, could not prevent him from entering Zaragoza and giving the inhabitants a day of jubilee. Duran replied, that he waited for General Mina to enter with him; but Mina neither appeared, nor any messenger from him, till about seven in the morning, when, passing by the Casa Blanca, without alighting, or turning aside to the building in which the Ayuntamiento and Duran were awaiting him, he sent a chaplain to inform the old general that he was going on to the Torrero. Not a little surprised at this, they all went out in hope of speaking with him, but it was too late; and when one of the Ayuntamiento was deputed to seek him at the Torrero, and let him know that they were waiting for him, he was not found there. The forenoon was far advanced before he, with some of his chief officers, approached the Puerta Quemada, where Duran with his division and the Ayuntamiento were expecting them; his cavalry was at that time fording the Ebro; and merely saying to Duran that he was about to pursue the enemy with them, he rode away. Even noble minds are not always free from infirmity, and this conduct was ascribed to a jealous desire of engrossing to himself the glory of having delivered Zaragoza; for which reason he did not choose to enter with Duran, who was an older camp marshal, and as such, and also as commandant-general of Lower Aragon, must have entered at the head of the troops. But if this unworthy feeling existed, there were fairer motives that mingled with it; he thought it better that his infantry should remain encamped than that they should be quartered in the city; and the pursuit of General Paris was certainly an object of no trifling importance. Two of Mina’s regiments thinking that they were following Paris toward Leciñena, fell in with him unexpectedly, and were attacked by him in the rear, and found it necessary to take up a position, first upon a height near that place, and then near the Ermita de Magallon. The French, whose business should then have been rather to secure themselves by a rapid retreat, than to seek for trivial advantages, lost some time in vainly endeavouring to dislodge them. Giving up the attempt, at last they took the road to Alcubierre; the Spaniards then pursued, harassed their rear, and compelled them to abandon, at the foot of the mountain there, the greater part of the coaches, calesas, and carts, laden with spoil which they had brought from Zaragoza. Paris meantime accelerated his retreat, and effected it, but not without losing the greater part of his convoy, all his artillery, and considerable numbers in killed and wounded, and some fifty prisoners, of whom about twenty were Spanish traitors. Mina arrived with his cavalry after the spoil had been taken, and when it was too late to continue the pursuit.

♦Suchet draws off the remaining garrisons in Aragon.♦

Paris’s orders had been to make for Mequinenza if he were compelled to leave Zaragoza; this he found impossible, and was glad to effect his escape by Huesca and Jaca. Marshal Suchet, after leaving a garrison of 4500 men in Tortosa, under Baron Robert, moved toward the frontier of Aragon, with the double view of saving Paris, and of enabling a detachment to rejoin him which he had sent to destroy the castles at Teruel and Alcañiz, and bring off the garrisons. The detachment having arrived at Caspe, Suchet pushed his columns to Fabera, and had now his army on the right bank of the Ebro ... having its right at Caspe, its centre at Gandessa, and its left at Tortosa. Here he received intelligence that Paris was driven upon Jaca; that Clausel, who had moved down from Jaca with a view of securing Zaragoza, finding it too late, had again retreated, and retiring still further, had taken a position with his corps upon the frontier of France, and that the whole of Aragon was lost. Nothing remained for him but to draw off the garrisons of Zuera, Gurrea, Anzanigo, Ayerbe, Huesca, Belchite, Fuentes, Pina, Bujaraloz and Caspe, and to think only of combining his operations with General Decaen for maintaining Catalonia. He crossed the Ebro therefore at Mequinenza, Mora, and ♦July 15.Suchet’s Mémoires, 2, 329–331.♦ Tortosa; and in passing between Hospitalet and Cambrils, was cannonaded by the English fleet. To maintain the line of the lower Ebro after the deliverance of Aragon was impossible; it was equally so to feed his army in the sterile environs of Tortosa, where he was also in danger of having the defiles in his rear occupied by the enemy, who might come by sea, and interpose between him and the strong places in Catalonia; he determined therefore upon moving on Reus, Valls, and Tarragona.

♦Duran enters Zaragoza. July 10.♦

Meantime Duran, manifesting no displeasure at the discourtesy which had been shown towards him, made his entrance into Zaragoza. His first business was to march through the rejoicing streets to the church of Our Lady of the Pillar, and here offer up thanksgiving; his second was to lay siege to the castle. The heavy artillery of his division was sent for, and approaches regularly made; and the Zaragozans, after having so often seen the Spaniards who had been made prisoners in Aragon or Valencia, marched through their streets, had now the satisfaction of seeing a French garrison brought prisoners thither in their turn from La Almunia, where they had surrendered to a detachment of the Sorian division. During the first days of the siege, Mina, finding it in vain to pursue General Paris, returned, and took up his quarters with his troops in the suburb; and this was supposed to be a farther indication of jealousy towards Duran, because by remaining on that side of the Ebro which appertained to his own district of Upper Aragon, he was not under his command; it was deemed more strange that he took no part whatever at this time in the operations of the siege, but left it wholly to be carried on by the Sorian division; in fact, he was daily expecting to be appointed to the command of the whole province. Before that appointment arrived, intelligence came that Suchet had advanced to Fabara and Caspe; upon which he crossed the bridge, began his retreat to Las Casetas and to Alagon, and sent orders to Tabuenca to follow him with his regiment: Tabuenca replied that he was under General Duran’s command, and could not leave Zaragoza without his orders. And Duran, as soon as he was informed of this, sent to Mina, saying he could not allow the regiment of Rioja to accompany him in his retreat (a retreat of which he was no otherwise informed than by the orders which had been sent to its colonel), because being determined to defend the city, he required its presence, and indeed he requested the support of some of his troops also; for if the enemy should advance to Zaragoza, which he did not expect, the retreat of the Spanish troops would have a most prejudicial effect upon the public mind; the two divisions were strong enough to meet the French and give them battle, and this they ought to do; but for himself, with his single division, he could defend the city. This indeed Duran at that juncture could well have done; but if the alternative had been to meet Suchet in the field, or to retreat, the course which Mina followed, in pursuance of his usual system, would have been unquestionably the most judicious.

♦Mina takes the command.♦

It was soon ascertained that Suchet had retreated, upon which Mina returned to Zaragoza; he then took up his quarters in the city, and the siege of the Aljaferia was carried on jointly by the two divisions; and on the fourth day after his return, the commission which he had looked for arrived, appointing him Commandant-General of all Aragon. The same day brought orders for Duran to join the army of Catalonia, leaving, however, such regiments as Mina might think proper to detain. Mina took two out of four regiments, and one of three squadrons of cavalry; with the remainder Duran departed for Catalonia, leaving to Mina the reputation of effecting the deliverance of Zaragoza, which certainly was not due to him, and was not needed for one who had rendered more signal services to his country, when its fortunes were at the lowest ebb, than any other individual. Duran was remarkable among all the partizans who distinguished themselves in this war for the

♦Reconquista de Zaragoza, pp. 23–84.♦ discipline which, as an old officer, he introduced among his troops, and which he maintained by means that made him equally respected and beloved. Father, or grandfather, were the appellations by which they called him, and which he deserved by the care which he manifested on all occasions for them. On ♦The Aljaferia surrendered.♦ the second day after his departure a redoubt was blown up, in which the commanding officer of the artillery, and 28 men who were in garrison there, perished. This was said to have been his own act; and it was said also that another artillery officer intended to set fire to the powder-magazine, but was prevented by the soldiers, who with their besiegers must otherwise have been destroyed, and with them no small part of the city. The motive assigned for this insane desperation was resentment against the commandant of the place for determining to capitulate, though the works had sustained little injury, and were abundantly provided for a long defence. Immediately after this the garrison surrendered.

♦Conduct of the Zaragozans during their captivity.♦

Thus, after four years of captivity, Zaragoza was delivered from its detested enemies. During the greater part of that time no tidings but those of ill fortune had reached the Zaragozans, ... the defeat of their armies, the capture of one strong hold after another, some having yielded through famine, others to the strength and skill of the besiegers, and more having been basely or traitorously given up. And though they well knew that the journals of the Intrusive Government, like those in France, were conducted upon a system of falsehood, suppressing every thing which could not be made appear favourable to Buonaparte’s views, they could not doubt the substance of these tidings, nor, in some of the worst cases, the extent of the national loss. The prisoners who were taken in Blake’s defeat before Murviedro, and the still greater number who surrendered with him at Valencia, had been marched through the streets of Zaragoza, in the depth of winter, and in a condition which would have moved any soldiers to compassion except those of Buonaparte and of the generals whom he employed in Spain: without shoes and stockings, foot-sore, half naked, half famished, they were driven and outraged and insulted by an enemy who seemed, together with the observances of civilized war, to have renounced the feelings of humanity. At such times the Zaragozans, without distinction of rank or sex, crowded about their unfortunate countrymen to administer what consolation they could, to weep over them, and to share with them their own scanty supplies of clothing and of food. On such occasions, too, all the respectable families, as if by one consent, kept days of mourning and humiliation1, each in their houses: and more earnest prayers were never offered up than they breathed in bitterness of soul for the deliverance of their injured country, and for vengeance upon their merciless and insolent oppressors.

At the time of the deliverance, and long after, the city and its environs bore miserable vestiges of the two sieges. Ruined houses were to be seen far and near on every side, and the broken walls of what once had been fertile inclosures. Some streets were merely ruins; in others, the walls of the houses were literally covered with the marks of musket-balls, and in some places large holes had been made in them by the numbers which had struck there. Most of the churches and convents were nothing but heaps of ruins; the Capuchin’s convent had been so totally demolished, that only a solitary cross remained to mark the spot where it had stood. Nothing had been repaired except the Aljaferia and such of the fortifications as the French re-fortified for their own security. Much of this material destruction was reparable; but precious monuments of antiquity had been destroyed, ... precious libraries and precious manuscripts, which never could be replaced; and upon most of the inhabitants irreparable ruin had been brought. The loss of life which had been sustained there may be summed up: broken fortunes and broken hearts are not taken into the account; but the sufferers had the proud and righteous satisfaction of knowing that they had not suffered in vain. The two sieges of Zaragoza, that in which it was overcome, not less than that which it successfully resisted, contributed more than any other event to keep up the national spirit of the Spaniards, to exalt the character of the nation, and to excite the sympathy and the admiration of other countries. And the good will not pass away with the generation upon whom the evil fell. There is no more illustrious example of public virtue in ancient or modern history than this of Zaragoza. Such examples are not lost upon posterity; and such virtue, as it affords full proof that the Spanish character retains its primitive strength, affords also the best ground for hope, not only that Spain may resume its rank in Christendom as a great and powerful kingdom, but also that the Spaniards may become, religiously and politically, a free and enlightened nation; not by the remote consequences of a sudden and violent revolution, which always brings with it more evils than it sweeps away, but by the progress of wisdom and truth, working their sure though slow effect in God’s good time, among a patient, thoughtful, and devout people.

♦St. Sebastian’s.♦

Aragon having now been wholly delivered from the enemy, no attempt could be made from that side to relieve Pamplona; the blockade of that city was safely intrusted to the Spaniards, who were now becoming an efficient part of the allied armies; and meantime the siege of St. Sebastian’s was made Lord Wellington’s immediate object. St. Sebastian’s, which is the most important town in Guipuzcoa, stands at the mouth of the little river Urumea, on a peninsula between two arms of the sea, and at the foot of a high hill. A bay forms its port, which has been widened and deepened, but is still small and shallow, and so insecure in certain winds, that ships have been driven from their anchors there; yet to this port the town owes its origin, and its fortifications, which were first erected to protect the shipping. Close at hand, on the side towards France, is the capacious harbour of Passages, surrounded by mountains, with an entrance between the rocks so strait, that only a single ship can pass, and that only by towing; formerly it served for ships of the line, but under the mal-administration of later years it had been neglected, and was now so far filled up, that none but small craft and vessels of 200 or 300 tons came in: for this reason, probably, the Caraccas Company, whose port it had been, removed to St. Sebastian’s. There also the entrance is very narrow, being confined between two moles. The town contains from 600 to 700 houses, in twenty streets, all which are paved with large smooth stones, and several of them long, broad, and straight: the suburbs were more extensive, and the whole population was estimated at 13,000.

Few places present a more formidable appearance; the only land approach is over a low sandy isthmus, occupied by one front of fortification, and this narrow road is commanded by the castle; but on the left flank there are considerable sand-hills some 600 or 700 yards distant, which completely enfilade and take in reverse the front defences. Those which cross the isthmus are a double line of works, with the usual counterscarp, covered way, and glacis; but those which run lengthways consist only of a single line, and trusting to the waters in their front to render them inaccessible, are built without any cover. The northern line is from top to bottom quite exposed to the sand-hills; the Urumea, which washes the town on that side, is fordable for some hours before and after low water, and the tide recedes so much that during that time there is a considerable space left dry by which troops can march to the foot of the wall. Yet the wall had been left uncovered, though Marshal Berwick had availed himself of this defect when he attacked the place in 1719, and by effecting a breach there had made the garrison retire into the castle. In the revolutionary war, St. Sebastian’s was taken by the French without resistance; for though the troops would have done their duty in defending it, the inhabitants, rather than endure the horrors of a siege, allowed the magistrates, some of whom were timid and others traitorous, to surrender.

♦Distribution of the allied army.♦

After the battle of Vittoria, Jourdan had thrown a garrison of between 3000 and 4000 men into the place. The conduct of the siege was intrusted to Sir Thomas Graham, and the fifth division, under Major-General Oswald, consisting of Major-Generals Hay and Robinson’s British brigades, and Major-General Spry’s Portugueze, were employed in carrying it on. The first division, under Major-General Howard, consisting of the 1st and 2nd brigades of guards under Colonel Maitland and Major-General Stopford, with the brigades of the German legion, and Lord Aylmer’s, were in position covering the great road between Irun and Oyarzun, and supporting Don Manuel Freyre’s Spanish corps which crowned the heights of S. Marzial and guarded the line of the Bidassoa from the Crown Mountain to the sea. Giron and Longa kept up the communication with the left of the centre at Vera: this consisted of the 7th and light divisions, under the Earl of Dalhousie and Baron Alten ... the former posted in the pass of Etchalar, the latter on the mountain of S. Barbara, and in the town of Vera. The right of the centre, commanded by Sir Rowland, occupied the valley of Bastan, and with Major-Generals Pringle and Walker’s brigades of the 2d division, under Lieutenant-General the Hon. Sir William Stewart, guarded the passes of Maya. The Conde de Amarante, with Colonel Ashworth and Brigadier-General Da Costa’s Portugueze brigades, held the minor passes of Col d’Ariette and Col d’Espegas on the right, leading also into the valley of Bastan. Another Portugueze brigade of this division, under Brigadier-General Campbell, occupied a strong position between the valleys of Aldudes and Hayra, keeping communication on its left through the Port de Berdaritz with the valley of Bastan, and through the Port d’Alalosti on its right, with the right wing of the army, in the pass of Roncesvalles. The 6th division, under Major-General Pack, occupied S. Estevan, and formed the reserve of the centre, ready to support the troops at Maya or at Etchalar. The right wing covered the direct approaches to Pamplona from St. Jean de Pied-de-Port: in its front Major-General Byng’s brigade of the 2d division guarded the passes of Roncesvalles and Orbaicete; Morillo, with a division of Spanish infantry supporting the latter post; Sir Lowry Cole, with the 4th division, was in second line, at Biscarret, in rear of the pass of Roncesvalles. The 3rd division formed the reserve under Sir Thomas Picton, and was stationed at Olaque. This was the distribution of the allied army, guarding the passes of the Western Pyrenees, and covering the blockade of Pamplona and the siege of S. Sebastian’s. As the best means of saving time and labour in that siege, it was determined to follow Marshal Berwick’s mode of attack, breach the exposed wall from the sand-hills, and storm it as soon as the breach should be made practicable, trusting by quick movement to pass through the fire of the front line of works.

♦Siege of S. Sebastian’s.♦

When the troops appointed for the siege arrived in sight of the place, the whole of the works and of the castellated hill appeared to be in motion, so busily were the enemy every where employed in strengthening their defences. The Spaniards, who were previously blockading the place, could offer little interruption to them, because they had no artillery; but serious operations were now to commence, and the French, though they neither distrusted their own skill, nor that every possible exertion would be made for their relief, knew that all that skill and all those exertions would be called for. As a preliminary measure, it was necessary for the besiegers to drive the garrison from a post which they occupied, about 700 or 800 yards in advance of the town, formed by the convent of S. Bartolomé, and an unfinished redoubt, adjoining it, on the extremity of the steep hill towards the river, and from a small circular work which they made with casks on the causeway. Approaches were made, and batteries erected in the course of the night, between the 13th and 14th of July, with a celerity that surprised the French; and in the morning the guns opened upon the side of the convent. It was soon beaten down, ... the chapel, with its organ and costly adornments, was laid open, and demolished, and the roof fell in; but the French were not driven from the ruins. A false attack was made to ascertain whether they intended to maintain an obstinate resistance there; the troops carried it farther than their orders directed, and were fain to return with some loss. It was then attempted to drive the garrison out by means of red-hot shot; the Portugueze were less expert at this service than they had shown themselves in the field, they fired shot which had not been half heated, and frequently missed the whole building. Beams and whatever else was combustible from the neighbouring houses were used for heating the furnace; and at length the convent was set on fire in several places, but the garrison succeeded in extinguishing the flames as often as they broke out. The enemy, meantime, kept up from the town an incessant fire of shot and shells upon the batteries. After 2500 eighteen-pound shot and 450 ♦Convent of S. Bartolomé taken.♦ shells had been fired at the convent, it was found that the French were not to be dislodged by any other means than by the bayonet. Accordingly two columns were formed, one under the direction of Major-General Hay, on the right, to cross the ravine near the river, and attack the redoubt; the left, under Major-General Bradford, to attack the convent. Major-General ♦July 17.♦ Oswald commanded. The attack was begun about ten in the forenoon: the enemy in the convent were not aware of it till it was made; but the movement was perceived from the town and castle; troops were sent to reinforce the garrison, and a heavy fire was opened upon the assailants; ... it was soon discontinued, because they came to close quarters, and it must then have proved equally destructive to both parties. The reinforcement was not of more advantage, for thinking to take one body of the assailants in the rear, they were encountered and charged by another, and driven upon the convent, where the garrison had already been overpowered, and those who escaped were driven with the fugitives from the works down the hill, through the village of S. Martin’s, immediately below, which the enemy had burnt. The impetuosity of the pursuers could not be restrained; their directions not to pass the village were disregarded; they followed the French to the foot of the glacis, and suffered on their return. The garrison behaved gallantly, and lost 250 men; the loss of the allies amounted to 70. A fire from the town was kept up upon this post for twenty-four hours; and most of the dead with which the ground between it and the town was strewn, remained unburied there during the remainder of the siege, so great was the danger in collecting them, each party being jealous of the approach of an enemy to their works, even upon such an office.

Two batteries were thrown up during the night in a situation to enfilade and take in reverse the defences of the town. This in the loose sand was a most difficult work, and the fire of the enemy was directed with great precision to interrupt it; four sentinels were killed in succession through one loop-hole. The only eminence from whence artillery could be brought to bear directly on the town, though still about a hundred feet below it, was above the convent, and almost adjoining its walls. Here a battery was erected; the covered way to it passed through the convent, and the battery itself was constructed in a thickly-peopled burial-ground. A more ghastly circumstance can seldom have occurred in war; ... for coffins and corpses in all stages of decay were exposed when the soil was thrown up to form a defence against the fire from the town, and were used indeed in the defences; and when a shell burst there, it brought down the living and the dead together. An officer was giving his orders, when a shot struck the edge of the trenches above him; two coffins slipped down upon him with the sand, the coffins broke in their fall, the bodies rolled with him for some distance, and when he recovered he saw that they had been women of some rank, for they were richly attired in black velvet, and their long hair hung about their shoulders and their livid faces. The soldiers, in the scarcity of firewood, being nothing nice, broke up coffins for fuel with which to dress their food, leaving the bodies exposed; and till the hot sun had dried up these poor insulted remains of humanity, the stench was as dreadful as the sight.

The village of S. Martin, or rather its ruins, were now occupied, and approaches were struck out there ♦The batteries open.♦ to the right and left. On the 20th the batteries opened, and early in the evening the enemy abandoned the circular redoubt. The next day a flag of truce was sent with a summons to the governor, but not received. Meantime a parallel across the isthmus had been begun; in cutting it, the men came upon a channel level with the ground, in which a pipe was laid for conveying water into the town. The aqueduct was four feet high, and three feet wide. Lieutenant Reid of the engineers ventured to explore it, and at the end of 230 yards, he found it closed by a door in the counterscarp, opposite to the face of the right demi-bastion of the horn-work. It was thought that if a mine were formed at this point, the explosion would throw up earth enough against the escarp, which was only twenty-four feet high, to form a way over it; and accordingly sand-bags and barrels of powder were lodged there.

The service of the breaching battery was severe; the enemy of course directed every disposable gun against it, and their shells repeatedly blew up every platform there, and dismounted the guns. The seamen who assisted them did their duty nobly, as they always did; but with characteristic hardihood disregarded all injunctions tending to their own preservation, till many of them had suffered. Three of their officers and sixteen of their men were killed and wounded there in the course of three ♦Unsuccessful assault.♦ days. By mid-day of the 22nd, a breach had been made about 600 feet long, and, as it seemed, perfectly practicable, the wall being entirely levelled. It was strongly advised that this should be stormed on the following morning, as early as the light and the tide would admit; instead of this, orders were given to make another breach to the left in a more oblique part of the wall; one sure disadvantage of delay being that the time employed in making the second breach would be well used by the enemy in intrenching the first. After battering this second point for some hours, information was received from a civil engineer who was well acquainted with the place, that the wall to the right of the breach ♦July 24.♦ was a toise thinner than elsewhere; thither therefore the guns were directed, and before the night of the 23rd, a practicable breach was made there also. Great part of the town had already been ruined by the fire; it was at this time in flames, and the frequent crashing of houses was heard amid the roaring of the artillery. Before daybreak the trenches were filled with troops for storming and for supporting the assault, which was ordered for four o’clock; the batteries were to continue their fire upon the second breach till the moment of attack, and then all available guns were to be directed so as to restrain the enemy’s flanking fire from two towers, ... which, though much injured, were still occupied, ... or otherwise to assist as occasion might be perceived. All was in readiness, when about an hour after daybreak the order was countermanded, upon a misconception that because the houses at the back of the breach were on fire, the troops would not be able to advance after they should have gained the summit. The remainder of the day was spent in widening the second breach; time at this juncture was of such value that it was hoped the delay might only be for twelve hours, and the assault made at four in the evening; but it was thought a more important consideration that there would then be but few hours of daylight, and therefore the following morning was appointed.

Major-General Hay’s brigade formed the column of attack; Major-General Spry’s Portugueze brigade, Major-General Robinson’s, and the 4th Caçadores of Brigadier-General Wilson’s, were in reserve in the trenches, the whole under the direction of Major-General Oswald. The attack was made an hour before, instead of after daylight, because the tide was returning, and was already two feet deep under the wall where the ground is dry at low water. But some confusion was probably occasioned by the darkness; and the chance of success would have been greater if the arrangements had been made known to more of those officers who were to take part in executing them. The distance of the uncovered approach from the trenches to the breach was about 300 yards, over rocks covered with sea-weed, and intermediate pools of water, and in the face of an extensive front of works; the breach was flanked by two towers: the fire of the place was yet entire, and when the troops rushed from the trenches, it was presently seen that the French were not unapprized of the intended attempt, and that they had lost no time in making their preparations for defence; every gun which looked that way from the castle, and from the hill, was brought to bear upon the assailants, and from all around the breach they were flanked and enfiladed with a most destructive fire of grape and musketry. Blazing planks and beams were thrown transversely across the walls and on the breach; and stones, shot, shells, and hand grenades, were showered upon the allies with dreadful effect.

At this time the mine was sprung, and with as much effect as had been intended. It brought down a considerable length of the counterscarp and glacis, and astonished the enemy so greatly, that they abandoned for awhile that part of the works. When the Portugueze who were to take advantage of this hastened to the spot, there were no scaling-ladders, ... an officer ran to the foot of the breach, in hope the engineers there might be provided with them; ... if he had but one ladder, he said, he could post his whole party in the town: ... but ladders had not been needed here, and not thought of for the point where they might be required. The enemy had thus time to recover from their surprise; and the Portugueze, standing their ground with soldier-like fidelity, were miserably sacrificed, nearly the whole of this party being killed before the order for recalling them arrived.

Meantime Lieutenant Jones of the engineers with an officer and nine men of the first royals, gained the top of the great breach; and men were rushing up to follow them, when the enemy sprung a mine in one place, and in another drew the supports from under a false bridge, thus blowing up some of the assailants, and precipitating others upon the spikes which had been fixed below. The men who were at the foot of the breach were then panic-stricken; they, as well as the French, remembered that in such situations the victory is not to the brave or the strong, if superior skill is opposed to courage and strength: they ran back, ... it was impossible to rally them, and they suffered much. The intention was, that another column should pass in the rear of the first, between it and the sea to the second breach, and storm it; but the discomfiture of the first party prevented this, and none of these reached their destination. The whole was over before morning had fairly opened, and in the course of an hour, 45 officers and above 800 men were killed, wounded, or missing.

The river prevented any immediate communication, so that at the batteries it was thought that hardly anything more than a false alarm had taken place, till, as day dawned, they discovered through their glasses the bodies of officers and men in the breach, and under the demi-bastion and retaining wall. Presently one or two of the enemy appeared on the breach, and a serjeant came down among the wounded, raising some, and speaking to others. The firing which had been continued occasionally on the breach was then stopped; more of the French appeared; a kind of parley took place between them and the men at the head of the trenches; and half an hour’s truce was agreed on for the purpose of removing the wounded and the dead; but so jealous were the French that they would not allow the dead who were nearest them to be approached; some of the wounded they carried into the town, and others were borne by their soldiers into the British lines. While the troops were yet under arms, not knowing whether another attack might be ordered, a British officer saw one of his Portugueze soldiers start off, and reproved him for so doing, when after awhile the man returned; but the Portugueze replied, scarcely able to command his voice or restrain his tears as he spake, that he had only been burying his comrade, ... and in fact it appeared that with no other implement than his bayonet and his hand, he had given his poor friend and countryman a soldier’s burial in the sand. The officers who fell in this attack were buried together, each in a shell, in one grave, in a garden near the encampment.

♦The siege suspended.♦

Lord Wellington came over from Lesaca on the same day about noon, and determined upon renewing the attack; the second breach was to be completed, the demi-bastion thrown down, and fresh troops appointed for another assault. But the ammunition was now running low; and upon his return that night he received intelligence of movements on the enemy’s part in the Pyrenees, which made him forthwith dispatch orders for withdrawing the guns from the batteries and converting the siege into a blockade.

♦Soult appointed Commander-in-chief.♦

Marshal Soult had been sent back from Germany as Lieutenant of the Emperor, and Commander-in-chief of the French armies in Spain. Of all the French Generals employed in the Peninsula, he had obtained the highest reputation; and undoubtedly no one could be better entitled to the praise of those authors who write history, with a mere military feeling, reckless of all higher considerations. That impassibility which he considered as one of the first essentials for a general in such a war, and of which proof had been given in his proclamations and his acts, recommended him to Buonaparte not less than his great ability. The remains of the armies of Portugal, of the centre and of the north, were united; their ranks, which had so often been thinned, were filled by a new conscription; and the whole being re-formed into nine divisions of infantry, was called the army of Spain; the right, centre, and left, were under Generals Reille, Drouet, Compte d’Erlon, and Clausel; the reserve, under General Villatte: there were two divisions of dragoons under Generals Treillard and Tilly, and a light division under General Pierre Soult. In the expectation of success every exertion had been used to increase the strength of their cavalry, though of little use in the Pyrenees, that the war might be once more carried beyond the Ebro; and with the same view a large proportion of artillery was provided. The decree which appointed Marshal Soult bore date on the first of July; he took the command on the 13th, and his preparations were forwarded with the ability, activity, and hopefulness by which the French are characterized in such ♦His address to the troops.♦ things. He issued an address to his troops, containing more truth than was usually admitted into a French state paper, because the truth in that place could not possibly be concealed; but it was sufficiently coloured with artful misrepresentations and with falsehood. “The armies of France,” it said, “guided by the powerful and commanding genius of the Emperor Napoleon, had achieved in Germany a succession of victories as brilliant as any that adorned their annals. The presumptuous hopes of the enemy had thus been confounded; and the Emperor, who was always inclined to consult the welfare of his subjects, by following moderate counsels, had listened to the pacific overtures which the enemy made to him after their defeat. But in the interim, the English, who, under the pretence of succouring the inhabitants of the Peninsula, were in reality devoting them to ruin, had taken advantage of the opportunity afforded them. A skilful leader,” said Marshal Soult, “might have discomfited their motley levies; and who could doubt what would have been the result of the day at Vittoria if the general had been worthy of his troops? Let us not however,” he continued, “defraud the enemy of the praise which is their due. The dispositions and arrangements of their general have been prompt, skilful, and consecutive; and the valour and steadiness of his troops have been praiseworthy. Yet do not forget that it is to the benefit of your example they owe their present military character; and that whenever the relative duties of a French general and his troops have been ably fulfilled, their enemies have commonly had no other resource than in flight.” In one part of this address Marshal Soult rendered justice to Lord Wellington; but this latter assertion strikingly exemplifies the character of the vain-glorious people whom he was addressing. He himself had been repulsed by a far inferior British force at Coruña; had been driven from Porto, and defeated in the bloody field of Albuhera. He was addressing men who had been beaten at Vimeiro, beaten at Talavera, beaten at Busaco, beaten at Fuentes d’Onoro, routed at Salamanca, and scattered like sheep at Vittoria. They had been driven from Lisbon into France; and yet the general who had so often been baffled addressed this language to the very troops who had been so often and so signally defeated! “The present situation of the army,” he pursued, “is imputable to others: let the merit of repairing it be yours. I have borne testimony to the Emperor of your bravery and your zeal. His instructions are to drive the enemy from those heights which enable them arrogantly to survey our fertile valleys, and to chase them across the Ebro. It is on the Spanish soil that your tents must next be pitched, and your resources drawn. Let the account of our successes be dated from Vittoria, and the birth-day of the Emperor be celebrated in that city.”

♦Critical situation of the allied army.♦

Lord Wellington’s situation had not during the whole war been so critical as at this time. He had two blockades to maintain, and two points to cover, sixty miles distant from each other, in a mountainous country, where the heights were so impassable that there could be no lateral communication between his divisions. His force was necessarily divided in order that none of the passes might be left undefended, but the enemy could choose their point of attack, and bring their main force to bear upon it; thus they would have the advantage of numbers; and they had the farther advantage, that a considerable proportion of their troops, all who had belonged to the army of the north, had been accustomed to mountain warfare, in which the British and Portugueze had had no experience.

♦Soult’s movements for the relief of Pamplona.♦

Soult’s first object was to relieve Pamplona, which could only be relieved by some such great effort as he intended; whereas S. Sebastian’s, as long as the garrison could maintain themselves there, had always the possibility of receiving supplies along the coast. With this view he collected a convoy of provisions and stores at St. Jean de Pied-de-Port. Meantime the hostile forces, though each within their own frontier, were encamped in some places upon opposite heights, within half cannon-shot; and their sentries within 150 yards of each other. Hitherto with the Spaniards and Portugueze it had been, in the ever-memorable phrase of Palafox, war at the knife’s edge; but that national contest, in which the aggressors had treated courtesy and humanity with as much contempt as justice, was at an end; it was a military contest now, and the two armies offered no molestation to each other in the intervals of the game of war. The French, gay and alert as usual, were drumming and trumpeting all day long; the more thoughtful English enjoying the season and the country, looking down with delight upon the sea and the enemy’s territory, and Bayonne in the distance, and sketching in the leisure which their duties might allow the beautiful scenery of the Pyrenees. The right of the allied army was at Roncesvalles, the sacred ground of romance, where in the seventeenth century a spot was shown as still reddened with the blood of the Paladins; and where Our Lady, under some one of her thousand and one appellations, may perhaps still continue to work miracles in the chapel wherein they were interred. From that pass, and from the pass of Maya, the roads converge on Pamplona; and Soult made his arrangements for attacking both on the same day in force, ... for doing which he had the great advantage that Lord Wellington was at the opposite extremity of the line, near S. Sebastian’s.

♦Battles of the Pyrenees.♦

Accordingly, on the 24th, he assembled the right and left wings of his army, with one division of his centre, and two divisions of cavalry, at St. Jean de Pied-de-Port; and on the 25th (the same day that the unsuccessful assault upon S. Sebastian’s was made) he began his operations, and in person, with about 35,000 men, attacked General Byng’s post at Roncesvalles. Sir Lowry Cole moved up to his support with the 4th division; and they maintained their ground obstinately, against very superior numbers, though with considerable loss. But in the afternoon the enemy turned their position; and Sir Lowry deemed it necessary to withdraw in the night, and marched accordingly to Lizoain, in the neighbourhood of Zubiri. General Drouet, with 13,000 men, was to force the position of Maya: early in the morning he manœuvred against each of the four passes, and against the Conde de Amarante’s division, which was posted on the right. Under cover of these demonstrations, he collected his main strength behind a hill immediately in front of the pass of Aretesque, and from thence about noon made a sudden and rapid advance, favoured by a most unexpected chance. Two advanced videttes, who had been posted on some high ground to give timely notice of an enemy’s approach, had fallen asleep during the heat of the day; the French were thus enabled to advance unseen, and the piquet had scarcely time to give the alarm before the enemy were upon them. The light infantry companies of the second brigade sustained the attack with great steadiness; when they were overpowered, the 34th and 50th regiments came up, and afterward the right wing of the 92d; for as the other passes were not to be left unguarded, troops could only be brought from them by successive battalions, as the need became more urgent. Opposed as they thus were to very superior forces, the 32d lost more than a third of its numbers, and the 92d battalion was almost destroyed. The allies retired slowly, defending every point as succours enabled them to make a stand, but still over-matched; till, about six in the evening, Major-General Barnes’s brigade of the 7th division came to their support; then they recovered that part of their post which was the key of the position, and might have reassumed their ground; but Sir Rowland, having been apprized that Sir Lowry Cole must retire, deemed it necessary to withdraw them during the night to Irurita. They had been engaged seven hours, and lost four guns and more than sixteen hundred men.

During the whole of the following day, the enemy remained inactive beyond the Puerto de Maya. On that day Sir Thomas Picton, who, as soon as he was informed of Soult’s movements, had crossed to Zubiri with his division, moved forward to support the troops at Lizoain, and assumed the command there as senior officer. The enemy’s whole force advanced against them early in the afternoon, and they retired skirmishing to some strong ground, which they maintained, in order of battle, till night closed. Generals Picton and Cole concurred then in opinion that the post of Zubiri would not be tenable for so long a time, as it would be necessary for them to wait there. Early on the 27th, therefore, they began to retreat still farther, and took up a position to cover the blockade of Pamplona. The garrison of that fortress had been informed by some deserters from the Walloon guards that Soult, with a powerful army, was advancing victoriously to their relief, and that relief was certain. Their hopes were raised to the highest pitch; the firing was only five miles distant. The state of things appeared so critical to Abisbal, that he prepared to raise the blockade, and spiked some of his guns; and the enemy sallied, got possession of several batteries, and took fourteen pieces of cannon, before Don Carlos d’España could repulse them. The position which the retreating troops took to cover the blockade had its right in front of the village of Huarte, extending to the hills beyond Olaz, and its left on the heights in front of the village of Villalba, the right of this wing resting on a height which covered the road from Zubiri and Roncesvalles, and the left at a chapel behind Sorauren, on the road from Ostiz. Morillo’s division of Spanish infantry was in reserve, with that part of Abisbal’s corps which was not engaged in the blockade; and from the latter two regiments were detached to occupy part of the hill by which the road from Zubiri was defended. The British cavalry under Sir Stapleton Cotton were placed on the right, near Huarte, being the only ground on which cavalry could act. The river Lanz runs in the valley which was on the left of the allies, and on the right of the French, in the road to Ostiz. Beyond this river is a range of mountains connected with Ligasso and Marcalain, by which places it was now necessary to communicate with the rest of the army.

Lord Wellington arrived as these divisions were taking up their ground; and shortly afterwards Soult formed his army on a mountain between the Ostiz and the Zubiri roads, the front of the mountain extending from one road to the other. One division he placed on a bold height to the left of the Zubiri road, and in some villages in front of the third division, where he had also a large body of cavalry. The same evening he pushed forward a corps to take possession of a steep hill on the right of General Cole’s division: it was occupied by a Portugueze battalion and a Spanish regiment; these troops defended their post with the bayonet, and drove the enemy back. Seeing the importance of this point, Lord Wellington reinforced it with the 40th and with another Spanish regiment, so that the further efforts of the French there were as unsuccessful as the first; but they took possession of Sorauren, on the Ostiz road, whereby they acquired the communication by that road; and they kept up a fire of musketry along the line till it was dark.

In the morning General Pack’s division arrived. Lord Wellington then directed that the heights on the left of the valley of the Lanz should be occupied, and that this division should form across the valley in rear of the left of General Cole’s, resting its right on Oricain, and its left upon the heights. They had scarcely taken the position in the valley when they were attacked in great force from Sorauren: the enemy advanced steadily to the attack; but the front was defended from the heights on their left by their own light troops, and from the height on the right, and on the rear, by the 4th division and a Portugueze brigade; and the French were soon driven back, with great loss, by the fire in their front, both flanks, and rear. This was a false move from which Soult never recovered: with a view of extricating his troops from the situation in which they were now placed, he attacked the height on which the left of the 4th division stood, and where the 7th Caçadores were posted, at an ermida, or chapel, behind Sorauren. Momentary possession was obtained of it; but the Caçadores returned to their ground, supported by Major-General Ross at the head of his brigade, and the enemy were driven down. The battle now became general along the whole of these heights, but only in one point to the advantage of the French, which was where a battalion of Major-General Campbell’s Portugueze regiment was posted; that battalion was overpowered, it gave way immediately on the right of Ross’s brigade: the French then established themselves on the line of the allies, and Ross was obliged to withdraw from his post. Upon this, Lord Wellington ordered the 27th and 48th to charge, first that body of the enemy which had established itself there, and then those on the left. Both charges succeeded; the enemy were driven back: the 6th division at the same time moved forward nearer to the left of the 4th; the attack upon this front then ceased entirely, and was but faintly continued on other points of the line. Every regiment in the 4th division charged with the bayonet that day, and the 40th, 7th, 20th, and 23rd, four different times. Their officers set them the example, and Major-General Ross had two horses shot under him. The events of that day abated Marshal Soult’s confidence, and made him feel how little he could expect to succeed against such troops and such a commander. He no longer thought of dating his report of the operations from Vittoria, and celebrating the Emperor Napoleon’s birth-day in that city; and he sent back his guns, his wounded, and great part of his baggage, to S. Jean de Pied-de-Port, while they could be sent in safety.

On the 29th both armies remained quiet in their positions, each expecting the result of its combinations. Sir Rowland had been ordered to march upon Lizasso by Lanz, and the Earl of Dalhousie from San Esteban upon the same place; both arrived there on the 28th, and Lord Dalhousie’s division came to Marcalain, thus assuring Sir Rowland’s communication with the main body. Marshal Soult’s manœuvres were now baffled, for the allies were become one army; but he saw one chance for victory still remaining, and he was not a man to let any opportunity escape him. Drouet’s corps, before which Sir Rowland had retired, followed his march, and arrived at Ostiz on the 29th. Thus the French force also became one army. The Marshal thought his position between the Arga and Lanz was by nature so exceedingly strong, and so little liable to attack, that he might without apprehension withdraw from it the bulk of his troops. Occupying, therefore, still the same points, but drawing on to his left the troops which were on the heights opposite the third division, he reinforced Drouet with one division, and during the night of the 29th occupied in strength the crest of the mountain opposite to the 6th and 7th divisions, thus connecting his right in its position with the force which had been detached to attack Sir Rowland, his object being thus to open the Tolosa road, turn the left of the allies, and relieve St. Sebastian’s, now that he had failed in the attempt for the relief of Pamplona.

On the morning of the 30th his troops were observed to move in great numbers toward the mountains on the right of the Lanz, with what intent Lord Wellington at once perceived, and determined to attack the French position in front. He ordered Lord Dalhousie to possess himself of the top of the mountain opposite him, and turn their right, and Sir Thomas Picton to cross the heights from which the French division had been withdrawn, and from the Roncesvalles road turn their left, and he made his arrangements for attacking them in front, as soon as the effect of these movements on both flanks should appear. In every point these intentions were effected. Lord Dalhousie with General Inglis’s brigade drove them from the mountains: Major-General Pakenham who had the command of the 6th division, Major-General Pack having been wounded, then turned the village of Sorauren, and Major-General Byng’s brigade attacked and carried the village of Ostiz. Sir Lowry Cole attacked their front, when their confidence in themselves as well as in their ground had thus been shaken, the French were then compelled to abandon a position which Lord Wellington declared to be one of the strongest and most difficult of access that he had ever seen occupied by troops.

While these operations were going on, and in proportion as they succeeded, troops were detached to support Sir Rowland. Late in the morning the enemy appeared in his front, and made many vigorous attacks, while Drouet manœuvred upon his left: every attack was repulsed, and the allies maintained their ground, till Drouet, by a more distant movement, ascended the ridge, and came absolutely round their left flank; Sir Rowland then leisurely retired about a mile to a range of heights near Eguarras, and repelled every attempt to dislodge him from that strong ground. Lord Wellington meantime pursued the enemy after he had driven them from their position on the mountain, and at sunset he was at Olaque, immediately in the rear of their attack upon Sir Rowland. Their last hope had failed, and, withdrawing from Sir Rowland’s front during the night, they retreated with great ability through the pass of Doña Maria, and left two divisions there in a strong position to cover their rear in the pass. Sir Rowland and Lord Dalhousie were ordered to attack the pass; they moved by parallel roads; and the enemy, closely pressed by the 7th division, were ascending the hill in great haste, when Sir Rowland arrived at the foot of the pass, not in time to cut off any part of their rear. Both divisions ascended the hill, each by its own road; and the French took up a strong position at the top of the pass, with a cloud of skirmishers in front. On the left, which was Sir Rowland’s side, the attack was led by Lieutenant-General Stewart with Major-General Walker’s brigade; they forced the skirmishers back to the summit of the hill, but coming there upon the main body, found it so numerous and so strongly posted, that they deemed it necessary to withdraw till the 7th division should come into closer co-operation. They had not long to wait for this: General Stewart was wounded, and the command devolved upon Major-General Pringle; he renewed the attack on that side, while Lord Dalhousie pressed the enemy on the other; both divisions gained the height about the same time, and the enemy, after sustaining a very considerable loss, retired; they were pursued for some way down, but a thick fog favoured them, and prevented the allies from profiting further by the advantage they had gained. Lord Wellington meantime moved with Major-General Byng’s brigade and Sir Lowry Cole’s division through the pass of Velate upon Irurita, thus turning their position on Doña Maria. A large convoy of provisions and stores was taken by Major-General Byng ♦August 1.♦ at Elizondo. The pursuit was continued during the following day in the vale of Bidassoa. Byng possessed himself of the valley of Bastan and the position on the Puerto de Maya; and at the close of the day the different divisions were re-established nearly on the same ground which they had occupied when their operations commenced, eight days before. The enemy had now two divisions posted on the Puerto de Echalar, and nearly their whole army behind that pass; and Lord Wellington resolved to dislodge them by a combined attack and movement of the 4th, 7th, and light divisions, which had advanced by the vale of the Bidassoa towards the frontier. The 7th, taking a shorter line across the mountains from Sumbilla, arrived before the 4th. Major-General Barnes’s brigade was formed for the attack, advanced before the others could co-operate, and with a regularity and gallantry which, Lord Wellington says, he has seldom seen equalled, drove the two French divisions from the formidable heights which they vainly endeavoured to maintain. Major-General Kempt’s brigade of the light division likewise drove a very considerable force from the rock which forms the left of the pass; and thus no enemy was left in the field, within this part of the Spanish frontier. During these operations the loss of the allies amounted to 6000 in killed, wounded, and missing; that of the French exceeded 8000. On both sides great ability had been manifested; seldom indeed has the art of war been displayed with such skill, and upon such difficult ground. To guard against the repetition of so formidable an effort on the enemy’s part, the positions which the allies occupied were strengthened by redoubts and intrenchments. While the main scene of action lay in the neighbourhood of Pamplona, that portion of the enemy’s force which had been left to observe the allies on the great road from Irun, attacked Longa, who occupied that part of the Bidassoa and the town of Vera with his division. He repulsed them with great loss; and it was not the least of the discouraging reflections, which could not but occur to the enemy after the failure of all these well-planned and well-attempted endeavours, that the Spanish troops had now become as efficient as the Portugueze.

♦Siege of St. Sebastian’s resumed.♦

During these eventful days the guns had been withdrawn from the batteries before St. Sebastian’s, and, with all the stores, embarked at Passages, and the transports had been sent to sea; but a blockade was kept up, and the guard continued to hold the trenches. The vigilant enemy made a sortie on the morning of the 27th, and carried off between 200 and 300 Portugueze and English from the trenches prisoners into the town. Want of foresight on the part of the besiegers allowed them this opportunity, for some of the guns of the left embrasures had, in apprehension of such an attempt, been arranged so as to take the enemy in flank; and those guns were withdrawn with the others. On the 3rd the French surprised a patrol in the parallel and made them prisoners: but Soult’s defeat was known ♦August 6.♦ now; the stores were re-landed at Passages, and Sir Thomas Graham waited only for the arrival of more artillery and ammunition from England to recommence the siege. The infantry meantime rested on its arms; and the cavalry, who longed to eat the green maize (which was prohibited), kept their horses in good exercise in looking for straw. The 17th was Buonaparte’s birth-day; three salutes were fired from the Castle of St. Sebastian’s on the eve preceding, as many at four in the morning, and again at noon; and at night the words “Vive Napoleon le Grand” were displayed in letters of light upon the castle: ... it was the last of his birth-days that was commemorated by any public celebration. The expected artillery arrived at Passages on the 18th. That little town had never in the days of its prosperity, when it was the port of the Caraccas Company, presented a scene so busy, nor while it lasted so gainful to the inhabitants and peasantry of the surrounding country. The market for the army was held here, which they supplied with necessaries, the produce of the land; and which at this time wanted nothing wherewith England could supply it, so frequent now and so easy was the intercourse. Here the reinforcements were landed, which, now that the British government had caught the spirit of its victorious general, were no longer limited by parsimonious impolicy. When the horses were to be landed they were lowered from the transports into the sea, and guided by a rope as they swam to shore; but this sudden transition from the extreme heat of the hold to the cold water proved fatal to several of them.

The garrison of St. Sebastian’s employed the time which the blockade afforded them so well, in strengthening their defences and adding new ones, that when the allies had to recommence the siege, the place was stronger than before. The plan now determined on was to lay open the two round towers on each end of the first breach, and connect it with the second breach, which was to the right, add to it another on the left, and demolish a demi-bastion to the left of the whole, by which the approach was flanked. A mortar battery was also erected for the purpose of annoying the castle across the bay. Sailors were employed in this, and never did men more thoroughly enjoy their occupation. They had double allowance of grog, as their work required; and at their own cost they had a fiddler; they who had worked their spell in the battery went to relieve their comrades in the dance, and at every shot which fell upon the castle they gave three cheers. Little effect was produced by this battery, because of its distance. Between it and the town is the island of St. Clara, high and rocky, about half a mile in circumference, which the French occupied; it was deemed expedient to dislodge them and take possession of it, because the season was approaching when ships might be obliged to leave the coast, and this spot facilitated the enemy’s communication with their own country. The only landing-place was under a flight of steps, commanded by a small intrenchment on the west point of the island, and exposed to the whole range of works on the west side of the rock and of the walls; the garrison, consisting of an officer and twenty-four men, were thus enabled to make such a resistance, that nineteen of the assailants were killed and wounded. The island however was taken, and the garrison made prisoners.

The actual siege recommenced on the 24th; and at the following midnight the enemy made a sortie, entered the advanced part of the trenches and carried confusion into the parallel; but when they attempted to sweep along its right, a part of the guard checked them, and they retired into the town, taking with them about twelve prisoners. The batteries opened on the morning of the 26th. On the night of the 27th another sortie was tried; but experience had made the besiegers more vigilant, and it was repulsed before the slightest mischief could be done. Nothing that skill and ingenuity could devise was omitted by the garrison; they repaired by night as far as possible the injury which had been done in the day; cleared away the rubbish; and at the points at which the batteries were directed, let down large solid beams to break the force of the shot. But in this branch of the art of war, the means of attack are hitherto more efficient than those of defence; and in the course of the 29th the enemy’s fire was nearly subdued. They lost many men by our spherical case shot; and they attempted to imitate what they had found so destructive, by filling common shells with small balls, and bursting them over the heads of the besiegers; but these were without effect. On the night of the 29th there was a false attack made with the hope of inducing the enemy to spring the mines, which it was not doubted that they had prepared; they fired most of their guns, but the end was not answered, for no mine was exploded.

♦Preparations for assaulting the town.♦

Men were now invited to volunteer for the assault, such men, it was said, “as knew how to show other troops the way to mount a breach.” When this was communicated to the 4th division, which was to furnish 400 men, the whole division moved forward. The column of attack was formed of the 2nd brigade of the 5th division, commanded by Major-General Robinson, with an immediate support of 150 volunteers from the light division, 400 from the first, and 200 from the 4th; and with the remainder of the 5th division in reserve, the whole under the direction of Sir James Leith. Sir James had been severely wounded in the battle of Salamanca, and his constitution still felt the effects of the Walcheren fever; but leaving England as soon as he was sufficiently recovered to discharge his duties, he arrived at S. Sebastian’s on the 29th, and resumed the command of his division in the trenches, Major-General Oswald, who had held it during his absence, resigning it and acting as a volunteer. As the breaches now appeared to be practicable, the assault was ordered for eleven o’clock on the forenoon of the 31st, being the time of low water; and to prepare debouches for the troops, three shafts were sunk at the advanced sap on the right, for the purpose of breaking through the sea wall, which was of masonry, four feet thick and ten feet above the high water mark; they were sunk eight feet below the surface, and each loaded with 540 pounds of powder.

♦Soult moves for its relief.♦

Marshal Soult, meantime, as soon as he knew that the siege had been recommenced, leaving one division in front of the British light division, and another in front of the 7th, moved the rest of his army to the camp at Urogne, with the obvious intention of making an attempt to relieve the place. Under that expectation all the troops of horse artillery were ordered to march, and the artillery not employed in the siege was sent to the front. The eve of the assault was therefore a time of more than usual anxiety; for if either the assault should fail, or Soult should succeed, the situation of the allies would be rendered critical. In the course of the day the wood and rubbish of the right breach took fire, and a mine near it exploded; and in the afternoon five small mines within the town were blown up by ♦Assault of S. Sebastian’s.♦ the falling of a shell. The evening closed in with a storm of thunder and lightning and heavy rain. Two hours after midnight the three mines were sprung, and completely effected the purpose of blowing down the sea wall; the etonnoirs were immediately connected; a good passage out for the troops was thus formed, and the farther object was attained of securing all the works in their rear from any galleries which the enemy might have run out in that direction. In the morning there was such a fog, and the smoke in consequence hung so, that nothing could be seen; but about nine o’clock a gentle sea-breeze began to clear the mist, and the sun soon shone forth. Sir Thomas Graham, having completed the arrangements with Sir James Leith, left him to command the assault, and crossed the Urumea to the batteries of the right attack, from whence all might be distinctly seen, and orders for the fire of the batteries immediately given, according to circumstances. Sir James held it as an article of his military belief that British troops could not fail in any thing which they undertook. He now took the opinion of the chief engineer, Sir Richard Fletcher, as to the spot from whence he could best overlook and direct the desperate service of the day; the place they fixed on was upon the beach, about thirty yards in advance of the debouche from the trenches; and there, without any cover or protection whatever, they both took their stand; for it was a maxim with him that however brave the troops, and however devoted the officers, the example of those in command was, beyond every thing, essential.

About eleven o’clock the advanced parties moved out of the trenches, and the enemy almost immediately exploded two mines, for the purpose of blowing down the wall to the left of the beach, along which the troops were advancing to the breach; the passage between the wall and the water was narrow, and they expected, by the fragments of masonry which would be thrown down, to obstruct the line of march. This intent failed; but about twenty men were crushed by the ruins of the wall. The garrison, as on the former assault, were perfectly prepared; and from the Mirador battery, and the battery del Principe, on the castle hill, they opened a fire of grape and shells upon the columns. The forlorn hope, consisting of an officer and thirty men, fell to a man; the front of the columns which followed were cut off, as by one shot; and the breach, when the assailants reached it, was presently covered with their bodies; many of those who were ascending it were thrown down by the bodies of those above them, the living, the wounded, and the dead, rolling together down the ruins. From the Mirador and Prince batteries, from the keep of the castle, from the high curtain to the left of the breach, and from some ruined houses in front, about forty yards distant, which were loop-holed and lined with infantry, a concentrated fire was kept up; a line of intrenchment had been carried along the nearest parallel walls; this was strongly occupied, and it entirely swept the summit of the breach; and, in addition to all this, the horn-work flanked and commanded the ascent. The tower of Amesquita, on the left of the breach, was the only available point of defence which had not been manned; overlooked it could not have been by such engineers as those who conducted the defence: undoubtedly they considered the means which they had provided to be more than sufficient, and that no courage, however desperate, could in the face of them carry a breach which, upon all rules of art, was actually impracticable. That every art of defence which science and experience could devise would be practised was expected; it was known, also, that the garrison were as little deficient in confidence as in numbers, and that they had stores in abundance; but if there had been even a suspicion that the ground at the point of attack was what it was now found to be, it is certain that the assault, under such circumstances, would never have been ordered.

Nothing, in fact, could have been more fallacious than the external appearance of the breach. Up to the end of the curtain it was as accessible, quite to the terre-plein, as it seemed to be; but there the enemy’s situation was commanding, and the ascent itself was exposed to the horn-work: but this was the only point where it was passable, and there only by single files. Except on this point, there was a perpendicular fall from fifteen to twenty-five feet in depth, along the back of the whole breach, extensive as it was. Houses had been built against the interior of the wall; these were now in ruins; and there was no way of descending, except here and there by an end wall which remained standing; but the very few who could by this means get into the streets were exposed to an incessant fire from the opposite houses. During the suspension of the siege, every possible preparation had been made by the enemy, with the advantage of knowing the point which would be attacked; so that they had a great number of men covered by intrenchments and traverses in the horn-work, on the ramparts of the curtain, and in the town itself opposite the breach. The most determined courage was displayed by the troops, who were brought forward in succession from the trenches to this place of slaughter. Military duty was never discharged with more entire devotion than it was at this time both by officers and men. No man outlived the attempt to gain the ridge. The slope of the breach afforded shelter from musketry; but the nature of the stone rubbish rendered it impossible for the working parties to form a lodgement there, notwithstanding their utmost exertions, and the troops were exposed to the shells and grape from the batteries of the castle; and on the way to the breach so severe and continuous a fire was kept up that Sir James Leith was obliged to send directions for removing the dead and the dying from the debouches, which were so choked up as to prevent the passage of the troops.

♦Sir James Leith wounded.♦

A plunging shot struck the ground near the spot where Sir James was standing, rebounded, struck him on the chest, and laid him prostrate and senseless. The officers near thought certainly that he was killed; but he recovered breath, and then recollection, and resisting all entreaties to quit the field, continued to issue his orders. Sir Thomas Graham meantime accepted the offer of a part of Major-General Bradford’s Portugueze brigade to ford the river and assist in the assault. The advance of a battalion under Major Snodgrass, and of a detachment under Lieutenant-Colonel M’Bean, was made rapidly and firmly, under a very heavy fire of grape, along the beach and over a creek knee-deep. They got over, but not without great loss, and bore their part in what Sir Thomas Graham began now to think was an all but desperate attempt: and desperate it must have proved, if, upon consulting with Colonel Dickson, who commanded the artillery, he had not ventured to direct that the guns should be turned against the curtain. A heavy fire was immediately directed there, passing only a few feet above the heads of our own troops, and it was kept up with a precision of practice beyond all example. The troops who were employed in the assault were astonished at hearing the roar of cannon from behind them; they saw the enemy swept from the curtain; a few of their own men were brought down also by the first discharge: the second made the intent fully intelligible; its effect upon the enemy was visible, and a great effort was then ordered to gain the high ridge at all hazards.

At this time a shell burst near Sir James Leith, tore off the flesh of his left hand, and broke the arm in two places; still he continued to give directions, till, fainting from loss of blood, he was carried from the field. Major-General Hay succeeded to the command. Almost ♦Sir Richard Fletcher slain.♦ immediately afterwards, and nearly on the same spot, Sir Richard Fletcher talking to General Oswald, was killed by a musket-ball, which struck him in the spine of the neck. This was a great loss to his friends and his country: he was of such amiable qualities, as well as of such sterling worth, that no man was ever more respected and loved; and that his professional talents were of the highest order had been shown by the lines of Torres Vedras.

♦The city taken.♦

As Sir James Leith was carried through the trenches to the rear, he met the remaining part of his division pressing forward to execute his orders; and the men of the 9th regiment, recognizing their general, promised him not to desist from their exertions until the place should be taken. Just as they arrived at the breach, a quantity of cartridges exploded behind one of the traverses of the curtain; the fire of the artillery had occasioned this; and it caused some confusion among the enemy, who already apprehended that the tide of fortune was turning against them. The narrow pass was now gained and maintained; hats were waved from the terre-plein of the curtain; the troops rushed forward and drove the enemy down the steep flight of steps near the great gate leading from the works into the town. The troops on the right of the breach about the same time forced the barricadoes on the top of the narrow line wall, and found their way into the houses that joined it. In many places it was necessary to apply scaling-ladders before the men could get down. At the centre of the main breach there was an excavation below the descent, and a barricado at some feet farther back; here, therefore, any who should have descended would have been inclosed as a mark for the enemy, till the way was cleared for them by a flanking fire from a round tower on the right, which took the French in reverse. The French themselves were inclosed in a barricado between that tower and the right breach, and their dead lay there heaped upon each other. The contest was still maintained from barricadoes in the streets, and by firing from the houses; till between four and five in the afternoon, the enemy were driven from their last defence in the town, except the Convent of S. Teresa, and retired into the castle. By that time the town was on fire in many places; and, to add to the horrors of a place taken by assault, the vindictive enemy fired upon it from their upper defences, and rolled their shells into it.

About three in the afternoon, the day, which had been sultry, became unusually cold; the sky was overcast, and between the blackness of the sky, the rain, and the smoke, it was as dark as a dusky evening; but when darkness would in its natural course have closed the town was in flames. A dreadful night of thunder and rain, and wind succeeded; and it was made far more dreadful by man than by the elements. It is no easy task for officers, after the heat of an assault, to restrain successful troops who are under no moral restraint; and on this day so many officers had perished that the men fancied themselves exempt from all control. They sacked the place, and gave way to such excesses that if the French could have suspected the state of drunkenness to which men so excellently brave in action had reduced themselves, they might very probably have retaken part of the town, if not the whole. The loss of the assailants amounted to nearly 1600 British and 800 Portugueze killed and wounded; 700 of the garrison were made prisoners.

♦The French defeated in their attempt to relieve it.♦

On the morning of the assault the French made a second effort for the relief of S. Sebastian’s. Three divisions of Spaniards, under General Freyre, occupied the heights of S. Marcial on the left of the Bidassoa, and the town of Irun, thus covering the road to the besieged fortress. The position was exceedingly strong, the front and the left being covered by the river, and their right resting on the Sierra de Haya. They were supported by the first division of British infantry, under Major-General Howard, and by Lord Aylmer’s brigade on the left, and in the rear of Irun; and by Longa’s division near the Sierra in rear of their right. Still farther to secure them, Lord Wellington, knowing that during the 29th and 30th the enemy were assembling a large force at Vera, moved two brigades of the 4th division to the left of the Sierra, and occupied the heights on the right of that mountain, between the convent of S. Antonio and Vera; and Lezaca with a Portugueze brigade, to prevent it from being turned in that direction. On the 30th also he moved Major-General Inglis’s brigade to the bridge of Lezaca, and gave orders for the troops in the Puertos of Etchalar, Zugarramundi, and Maya, to attack the enemy’s weakened post in front of their positions.

Before daylight on the 31st the enemy crossed the Bidassoa with a very large force, two divisions by a ford in front of the left of the Spaniards, while a third, under protection of batteries which they had thrown up during the night, were constructing a bridge over the river, about three quarters of a mile above the high road. The two divisions immediately attacked the Spaniards along the whole front of their position on the heights of S. Marcial. The attack was made with that confidence which the French had always felt when the Spaniards were opposed to them in regular action; but the boldness with which they commenced it was ill maintained; for the Spaniards waited firmly till the assailants had nearly reached the summit of the steep ascent, then charged them with the bayonet whilst in column, and instantly broke them. As often as the French repeated the attack so often were they driven back, some of them even across the river, where many in their haste lost the direction of the ford and perished. The division which had been pushed across the Bidassoa to protect the construction of the bridge, made a subsequent attempt on the right of the Spaniards, with no better success. But as the course of the river was immediately under the heights on the French side, and a considerable bend in that part of the stream was flanked by their batteries, the Spaniards could not prevent the pontooners from completing their work; and in the afternoon the enemy marched over a considerable body, which, with the divisions who had crossed at the fords, made another desperate attack upon the Spanish position. Lord Wellington, who pronounced the conduct of the Spaniards on this day to have been equal to that of any troops whom he had ever seen engaged, appeared in front of their line at the moment when the French advanced to this last attack. He was received with loud and repeated shouts, and the men, proud of supporting in his sight the character which they felt that they had this day deserved, again beat back the assailants. They showed themselves indeed so capable of defending their post without assistance, that the two British divisions were not brought into action, the nature of the ground being such that they could not be employed on the flanks of the enemy’s corps. When the French were at length convinced that all their efforts were in vain, they took advantage of a violent storm and the darkness which came on with it, to retire hastily from this front. Many took to the river in their fear, to sink or swim if they should miss the fords; and in this attempt so many were seen to perish, the river being swoln by the storm, that latterly the fugitives crowded to the bridge, and at last pressed upon it in such numbers, that it sunk beneath their weight, and most of those who were passing at the moment were lost.

About the same time that the enemy commenced their operations on this side, a very strong body of their infantry crossed the Bidassoa, in two columns, by the fords below Salon, in front of the position occupied by the 9th Portugueze brigade. Major-General Inglis moved with his brigade to their support, and finding he could not maintain the heights between Lezaca and the river, withdrew to those in front of the convent, protecting there the right of the Spanish army, and at the same time the approach by Oyarzun to S. Sebastian’s. Major-General Kempt meantime moved a brigade of the light division to Lezaca, by which he kept the enemy in check; and the Earl of Dalhousie was directed likewise to support Major-General Inglis; but being engaged at the Puerto de Zugarramundi, he could not begin his march till late in the afternoon, nor arrive before the ensuing morning, when the operations were at an end. For the enemy, when they found that Major-General Inglis was in a position from which they could not dislodge him, and knew that they had completely failed at the heights of San Marcial, felt that their situation on the Spanish side of the Bidassoa was becoming every moment more critical, and retired during the night. But the river had then so risen, and was still rising so fast, that the rear of their column was obliged to cross by the bridge at Vera: and to effect this, they attacked the posts of the light division about three in the morning. If a sufficient force could have been spared for guarding this point, a very considerable part of Soult’s army might have been taken. The bridge was not wide enough for more than three or four to pass abreast, and a continual fire was poured upon it from the walls of a neighbouring convent, so that they were believed to have lost not less than a thousand men in passing. The loss of the allies on this day amounted to 400 killed, about 2060 wounded, and 150 missing, nearly 1600 of these being Spaniards. The brunt of the action had fallen upon them; and in this respect it was a day of great importance, because it made the French feel their own growing inferiority, and apprehend that San Marcial would teach the Spaniards the same confidence in themselves which the Portugueze had learned at Busaco. Among the British officers who fell was Captain Douglas of the 51st: he is thus mentioned in a work wherein so many crimes have been recorded, because his brother officers bore this testimony to him, that he was the only man they knew of whom they could truly say there was nothing in him in the slightest degree approaching to a vice. The men of his company carried him off the field, made his grave carefully, and gave him a soldier’s burial with all the marks of respect which they could bestow.

The effort on Soult’s part had been great, and was deemed so by Lord Wellington, for a Portugueze brigade was withdrawn from the besieging corps during the assault. As soon as the town had been carried, ♦Siege of the castle of S. Sebastian’s.♦ preparations were made for reducing the castle. The enemy still held the convent of S. Teresa, the garden of which, inclosed as usual in such establishments with a high wall, reached a good way up the hill, toward their upper defences; and from thence they marked any who approached within reach of fire, so that when a man fell, there was no other means of bringing him off than by sending the French prisoners upon this service of humanity. The town presented a dreadful spectacle both of the work of war and of the wickedness which in war is let loose. It had caught fire during the assault, owing to the quantity of combustibles of all kinds which were scattered about; the French rolled their shells into it from the castle; and while it was in flames, the troops were plundering, and the people of the surrounding country flocking to profit by the spoils of their countrymen. The few inhabitants who were to be seen seemed stupified with horror; they had suffered so much, that they looked with apathy at all around them, and when the crash of a falling house made the captors run, they scarcely moved. Heaps of dead were lying every where, English, Portugueze, and French, one upon another, with such determination had the one side attacked and the other maintained its ground. Very many of the assailants lay dead on the roofs of the houses which adjoined the breach. The bodies were thrown into the mines and other excavations, and there covered over so as to be out of sight, but so hastily and slightly that the air far and near was tainted; and fires were kindled in the breaches to consume those which could not be otherwise disposed of. The hospital presented a more dreadful scene, ... for it was a scene of human suffering; friend and enemy had been indiscriminately carried thither, and were there alike neglected; ... on the third day after the assault many of them had received neither surgical assistance, nor food of any kind; and it became necessary to remove them on the fifth, when the flames approached the building: much of this neglect would have been unavoidable, even if that humane and conscientious diligence, which can be hoped for from so few, had been found in every individual belonging to the medical department, the number of the wounded being so great; and little help could be received from the other part of the army, because it had been engaged in action on the same day. ♦Excesses committed in the city.♦ The hideous circumstances of war were indeed at this time to be seen in S. Sebastian’s, divested of its pomp: and to a thoughtful mind its actual horrors were less painful than the brutal insensibility with which they were regarded by men whose nature, originally bad, had been worsened by their way of life. Great exertions were made to stop the excesses which at such times are to be expected; but the utmost exertions can do little among troops who believe themselves privileged by the occasion to break loose from the restraints of military discipline, and who are not more fearless of death than they are, while in health and strength, of judgment. The town was sacked: had it been an enemy’s town, it could not have suffered more from its captors. Sentries were placed at all the outlets to make the plunderers lay down their booty, but all that could be secreted about the person was carried off; and the Spaniards of Passages and other places were ready, as at a fair, to purchase the spoils of their countrymen. A reproach was brought upon the British name. The French seized the opportunity of endeavouring to fix upon their enemies the same odious imputation which they themselves were conscious of having deserved; they accused the British of setting fire to the town, indiscriminately murdering friend and foe, and pillaging the place under the eyes of their officers, who made no attempt to restrain them. These charges were brought forward by that party in Spain who, without inclining in ♦September.♦ the slightest degree toward the French, manifested on all occasions their jealousy and their envious dislike of England; and they added the farther calumny, that the captors had plundered the churches, and, by giving way to excess of every kind, lost the favourable time for following up their success and taking the castle. All was false, except that great excesses had been committed: the difference between the conduct of the British at S. Sebastian’s, and that of the French at Porto, Tarragona, and other places, being this, that the crimes which the former perpetrated were checked as soon as they could be by the officers, acknowledged by the generals as evils which they had not been able to prevent, severely condemned by them, and punished: those of the French had been systematic and predetermined; the men were neither checked nor reproved by their generals; and so far were the generals from receiving any mark of disapprobation from their government, that the acts themselves were ostentatiously proclaimed in bulletins and official reports, in the hope of intimidating the Portugueze and Spaniards, and without any sense of shame.

♦The garrison surrenders.♦

Preparations were immediately made for reducing the castle, the plan being to erect batteries on the works of the town, and breach the Queen batteries, the Mirador, and the keep. On the 3rd, some discussion concerning a surrender was entered into with General Rey, which he broke off when it was required that the garrison should lay down their arms and become prisoners of war. These terms the general knew he could obtain at the last moment, and possibly he still entertained some hope of holding out till another effort could be made for his relief; as, even after he had retired into the castle, some artillery and ammunition reached him there from France, it being impossible, upon such a coast, and when the ports were so near, entirely to cut off the communication. The Convent of S. Teresa was taken on the 5th: by this time the flames, which continued still to spread, had driven the troops from their more advanced stations, and made them retire to the ramparts. By the evening of the 7th, the roofs of such houses and steeples as remained unburnt were prepared ♦Sept. 8.♦ for musketry; and on the following morning nearly sixty pieces of ordnance opened on the castle. With great exertions, directed by Captain Smith, of the navy, guns were got up the steep scarp of the islet of S. Clara, and there mounted on a battery, which the sailors manned. The wall of the Mirador was so hard, that the balls at first split upon striking it; nevertheless, it was peeled by the continual fire, and was beginning to come down, when the white flag was hung out. All the enemy’s batteries were at that time utterly demolished, those on the sea line alone excepted; the guns dismounted, the carriages knocked to pieces, and the castle in ruins. There were no barracks, nor any covering for the troops except holes, which had been excavated in every nook and corner, to serve for them as splinter-proofs; and of these many were filled with water, much rain having fallen during the preceding week: but for the prisoners, who were in the hands of the garrison, there was no shelter, and many of them were killed by the fire of their friends. The French general might have obtained credit for an act of generous humanity, and of policy as well, if he had released these prisoners, sending a trumpet with them to declare his reasons for so doing, and to express his reliance upon British honour that an exchange should be allowed for them; for this no doubt would have been agreed to, though the advantage was so manifestly to the enemy.

General Rey, on displaying the white flag, said he would send officers to confer on the terms of surrender. Sir Thomas Graham replied, no others would be offered than what had already been stated; the garrison must lay down their arms, and be made prisoners of war. During the whole siege they had lost about 2400 men, and they had now eaten all their horses. Yielding of necessity now, they were especially anxious that they should be under British protection, be embarked at Passages as the nearest port, and conveyed directly to England; and this was promised. One article requested that the Commissaire de Guerre, having with him the widow and the two daughters of his brother, who had died at Pamplona, might be allowed to return with them to France, he being their chief support. General Rey was indignant that an article about women should appear in the capitulation of such a garrison, and after such a defence; and this he expressed coarsely, as if a soldier disparaged his character by showing any consideration for humanity!

♦Sept. 10.♦

On the 10th, the Portugueze were formed in the streets of the ruined city; the British on the ramparts. The day was fine, after a night of heavy rain. About noon the garrison marched out at the Mirador gate. The bands of two or three Portugueze regiments played occasionally; but altogether it was a dismal scene, amid ruins and vestiges of fire and slaughter: a few inhabitants were present, and only a few. Many of the French soldiers wept bitterly, there was a marked sadness in the countenances of all, and they laid down their arms in silence. Colonel S. Ouary, the commandant of the place, had been uniformly attentive to the officers who had been prisoners. When this kindness was now acknowledged, he said that he had been twice a prisoner in England; that he had been fifty years in the service, and on the 15th of the passing month he should have received his dismission: he was now sixty-six, he said, an old man, and should never serve again; and if he might be permitted to retire into France, instead of being sent to England, he should be the happiest of men. Sir Thomas Graham wrote to Lord Wellington in favour of the kind-hearted old man, and it may be believed that the application was not made in vain. Captain Sougeon was recognized at this time, who, on the day of the first assault, had descended the breach to assist our wounded: “There,” said he, pointing to his men, “are the remains of the brave 22nd; we were 250 the other day, now not more than 50 are left.” Lord Wellington, upon being informed of his conduct, sent him to France. Eighty officers and 1756 men were all the remains of the garrison, and of these 25 officers and 512 men were in the hospital.