190 “The soldiers endured much during the first two or three days after the battle, and the inferior officers’ sufferings were still more heavy and protracted. They had no money, and many sold their horses and other property to sustain life; some actually died of want; and though Wellington, hearing of this, gave orders that they should be supplied from the purveyor’s stores in the same manner as the soldiers, the relief came too late.”

Casualties:—

191 It broke his right arm (subsequently amputated), wounded him in the side, and obliged him to be carried from the field in a litter, by relays of grenadiers, as any rougher method of conveyance was intolerable. After the marshal was removed, Clausel supplied his place with high credit to himself, both during the engagement, and in the retreat on Valladolid.

192 Mr. Southey, alluding to the eagles taken at Salamanca, gravely observes: “It is said that more than ten were captured, but that there were men base enough to conceal them, and sell them to persons in Salamanca, who deemed it good policy, as well as a profitable speculation, to purchase them for the French.”

Nothing can exceed the absurdity of this statement. The capture of so many trophies could not have been achieved without a correspondent notoriety—and those who were fortunate enough to win them, knew that the gallant deed would secure both honours and promotion. Is it probable, that the daring spirit who rushed into the deadly mêlée and seized the proud emblem of victory, would barter it, when won, for a paltry consideration? It is indeed a sweeping slander on British soldiers, to insinuate that out of ten brave and devoted men—for brave and devoted they must have been to do that deed—eight were the sordid wretches which Dr. Southey has depicted them.

193 The following passages are extracted from two letters addressed by Lord Wellington to Earl Bathurst and Sir Thomas Graham, dated from Flores de Avila on the 24th and 25th of July, 1812. The light and playful manner in which he alludes to the glorious victory just achieved is extremely characteristic of “the great Captain.”

“I hope that you will be pleased with our battle, of which the despatch contains as accurate an account as I can give you. There was no mistake; every thing went on as it ought; and there never was an army so beaten in so short a time. If we had had another hour or two of daylight, not a man would have passed the Tormes; and, as it was, they would all have been taken if —— had left the garrison in Alba de Tormes, as I wished and desired; or having taken it away, as I believe, before he was aware of my wishes, he had informed me that it was not there. If he had, I should have marched in the night upon Alba, where I should have caught them all, instead of upon the fords of the Tormes.”

“I took up the ground which you were to have taken during the siege of Salamanca, only the left was thrown back on the heights; it being unnecessary, under the circumstances, to cover the ford of Saint Martha. We had a race for the large Arapiles, which is the more distant of the two detached heights which you will recollect on the right of your position: this race the French won, and they were too strong to be dislodged without a general action. I knew that the French were to be joined by the cavalry of the army of the North on the 22nd or 23rd, and that the army of the Centre was likely to be in motion. Marmont ought to have given me a pont d’or, and he would have made a handsome operation of it. But, instead of that, after manœuvring all the morning in the usual French style, nobody knew with what object, he at last pressed upon my right in such a manner, at the same time without engaging, that he would have either carried our Arapiles, or he would have confined us entirely to our position. This was not to be endured, and we fell upon him, turning his left flank; and I never saw an army receive such a beating. I had desired the Spaniards to continue to occupy the castle of Alba de Tormes; —— had evacuated it, I believe, before he knew my wishes; and he was afraid to let me know that he had done so; and I did not know it till I found no enemy at the fords of the Tormes. When I lost sight of them in the dark, I marched upon Huerta and Encinas, and they went by Alba. If I had known there had been no garrison in Alba, I should have marched there, and should probably have had the whole. Marmont, Clausel, Foy, Ferrey, and Bonnet, are wounded badly. Ferrey, it is supposed, will die. Thomières is killed—many generals of brigade killed or wounded. I need not express how much I regret the disorder in your eyes since this action. I am in great hopes that our loss has not been great. In two divisions, the third and fifth, it is about twelve hundred men, including Portuguese. There are more in the fourth and sixth; but there are many men who left the ranks with wounded officers and soldiers, who are eating and drinking, and engaged in regocijos with the inhabitants of Salamanca; I have sent, however, to have them all turned out of the town. I hope that you receive benefit from the advice of the oculists in London.

“Believe me, &c.
“Wellington.”

“Lieut.-Gen. Sir T. Graham K. B.”

194 “Napoleon had notice of Marmont’s defeat as early as the 2nd of September, a week before the great battle of Borodino. The news was carried by Colonel Fabvier, who made the journey from Valladolid in one course, and having fought on the 22nd of July at the Arapiles, was wounded on the heights of Moskowa on the 7th of September!”—Napier.

195 “I was much struck with the simplicity of the Duke of Wellington’s attire, who wore a light grey pelisse coat, single-breasted, without a sash, and white neck-handkerchief, with his sword buckled round his waist, underneath the coat, the hilt merely protruding, with a cocked hat under his arm. He stood with his face towards the altar during the prayer offered up for the success of our arms.”—Leith Hay.

196 Segovia, a celebrated town of Old Castile, where are many remains of Moorish and Roman antiquity. Among the former is the Alcazar, once the palace of the Moorish kings, and afterwards of Ferdinand and Isabella, but which since their days has been used as a state prison. This building stands on a rock, rising some hundred feet above the river, which winds round nearly three-fourths of its base, and is cut off from the town on the remaining portion by a deep ditch and defences. The aqueduct, said to have been built by Trajan, is to be seen at different points between the town and Ildefonso, where the water is obtained; but the most remarkable feature of this structure is the portion in the suburb of the town, consisting of two rows of arches one above the other, nearly two hundred in number, the whole being formed of large blocks of stone, fitted into and supporting each other without cement, having thus withstood the ravages of time for eighteen centuries.

San Ildefonso is a village fifty miles north of Madrid. Here is situated the palace of La Granja, a favourite summer residence of the royal family. The building and gardens, with the numerous jets d’eau, were formed after the model of the palace and gardens of Versailles, by the Bourbon dynasty on their accession to the throne of Spain. The palace is situate at the bottom of the Sierra Nevada, an attached ridge of the Guaderama, in a recess on the north side of the mountain, which rises to a considerable height, covered with trees to its summit, and to the east and west; thus sheltering it at all times from the scorching heats of summer. The front of the building looks to the gardens, which rise before it, till they terminate in the craggy, pine-covered summit, adding much to the picturesque beauty of this delightful residence. The whole presents a scene, certainly, much more calculated to remind the beholder of the verdure and freshness of a more northern clime than of the burning fields and sultry sun of Spain.

197 “From our bivouac in the woods of Ildefonso, at daybreak on the 10th of August, we began to ascend the mountain; the road winding among stately pines and rugged precipices, at every point presenting behind us a prospect in every way worthy to arrest the attention. From the summit we commanded a boundless view of the country we had lately traversed, interesting from being the scene of our past toils and victories; while in our front lay one not less so from its novelty, from the many striking objects that presented themselves to the eye; but, above all, awaking feelings the most intensely interesting, from our near approach upon the capital of Spain, a flying and dispirited enemy in our front. With exhilarated spirits we descended the wooded skirts of the mountain, the palace of the Escurial to our right, while more distant lay Madrid, with its hundred globe-topped spires, the indications of former Moorish sway. Encamping in the neighbourhood upon the 12th, we moved into the city the following day.”—Mackie.

198 “We had a devil of an affair on the evening of the 11th. The French, two thousand cavalry, moved upon the Portuguese cavalry; D’Urban ordered them to charge the advanced squadrons, which charge they did not execute as they ought, and they ran off, leaving our guns (Captain M’Donald’s troop). They ran in upon the German cavalry, half a mile or more in their rear, where they were brought up; but they would not charge upon the left of the Germans. These charged and stopped the enemy; but Colonel de Jonquiers was taken, and we have lost a good many of these fine fellows. There are twenty killed, and about as many wounded and prisoners. We likewise lost three guns of M’Donald’s troop in the Portuguese flight, but the French left them behind.”—Wellington’s Despatches.

199 Mr. Grattan, author of “Reminiscences of a Subaltern.”

200 “We invested the place completely on the evening of the 13th; and in the night, detachments of the seventh division of infantry, under the command of Major-General Hope, and of the third division of infantry, under the command of Major-General the Hon. E. Pakenham, drove in the enemy’s posts from the Prado and the Botanical Garden, and the works which they had constructed outside of the park-wall; and having broken through the wall in different places, they were established in the palace of the Retiro, and close to the line of the enemy’s works inclosing the building called La China. The troops were preparing in the morning to attack these works, preparatory to the arrangements to be adopted for the attack of the interior line and building, when the governor sent out an officer to desire to capitulate, and I granted him the honours of war.”—Wellington to Lord Bathurst, Madrid, Aug. 15th, 1812.

201 “I likewise request your lordship not to forget horses for the cavalry and the artillery, and money. We are absolutely bankrupt. The troops are now five months in arrears, instead of being one month in advance. The staff have not been paid since February; the muleteers not since June, 1811; and we are in debt in all parts of the country. I am obliged to take the money sent to me by my brother for the Spaniards, in order to give my own troops a fortnight’s pay, who are really suffering for want of money.”

202 In fortification, the salient angle is that which turns from the centre of a place; while the re-entering points directly towards it.

203 A horn-work is a work having a front and two branches. The front comprises a curtain and two half-bastions. It is smaller than a crown-work, and generally employed for effecting similar purposes.

204 The eventual success of the French has been ascribed, it is hard to say with what truth, to their finding on the person of a dead officer a full detail of the siege operations, as arranged by the British engineers.

205 The mine was loaded with a thousand pounds of powder, and, for fifteen feet, tamped with bags of clay.

206 A Cavalier is a work in the body of a place, domineering the others by ten or twelve feet.

207 “In all the former sieges, almost every misfortune during their progress has been readily traced, next to the smallness of the means with which they were undertaken, to the defective state of the siege establishments of the army, which were seldom equal to draw the full benefit from even the small supplies that were brought up. But on this occasion even such as those did not exist: there was not the semblance of an establishment of that nature; not even a half-instructed miner, or half-instructed sapper—barely an artificer—hence the deviations from the original project, and the delay in the execution of such parts of it as were followed, which, combined with accident, served to render the project unavailing.”—Journal of the Sieges.

208 The complete success of this bold manœuvre offers many reflections on the futility of attempting to stop the march of troops by the fire of artillery in the night. In this instance, the good order and silence with which the allied army filed under the walls of the castle, was rendered of no avail to them by the conduct of a party of guerilla cavalry, who, unused to such coolness, put their horses to their speed, and made such a clatter that the garrison took the alarm, and opened a fire from the artillery directed on the bridge: the first discharge was, as might have been expected, very effectual; but the gunners immediately afterwards lost their range and direction, and their fire only served to make the carriages file over the bridge with more speed than usual.

209 The following striking anecdote indicates French gallantry:—“Suddenly, a horseman, darting out at full speed from the column, rode down under a flight of bullets to the bridge, calling out that he was a deserter; he reached the edge of the chasm made by the explosion, and then violently checking his foaming horse, held up his hands, exclaiming that he was a lost man, and with hurried accents asked if there was no ford near. The good-natured soldiers pointed to one a little way off, and the gallant fellow having looked earnestly for a few moments as if to fix the exact point, wheeled his horse round, kissed his hand in derision, and bending over his saddle-bow dashed back to his own comrades, amidst showers of shot, and shouts of laughter from both sides.”—Napier.

210 The united French corps numbered seventy-five thousand infantry, twelve thousand cavalry, and two hundred pieces of cannon; while the whole of the allied force that Lord Wellington could place upon a battle-field, did not exceed fifty-five thousand Anglo-Portuguese, of which five thousand only were horse.

211 Napier.

212 “Knowing that the most direct road was impassable, he had directed the divisions by another road, longer, and apparently more difficult; this seemed such an extraordinary proceeding to some general officers, that, after consulting together, they deemed their commander unfit to conduct the army, and led their troops by what appeared to them the fittest line of retreat! Meanwhile, Wellington, who had, before daylight, placed himself at an important point on his own road, waited impatiently for the arrival of the leading division until dawn, and then suspecting something of what had happened, galloped to the other road, and found the would-be commanders stopped by that flood which his arrangements had been made to avoid. The insubordination and the danger to the whole army were alike glaring, yet the practical rebuke was so severe and well-timed, the humiliation so complete, and so deeply felt, that, with one proud sarcastic observation, indicating contempt more than anger, he led back the troops and drew off all his forces safely. However, some confusion and great danger still attended the operation; for even on this road one water-gully was so deep that the light division, which covered the rear, could only pass it man by man over a felled tree; and it was fortunate that Soult, unable to feed his troops a day longer, stopped on the Huebra with his main body, and only sent some cavalry to Tamames. Thus the allies retired unmolested.”

213 “It is scarcely possible to imagine what powerful effect the excitement consequent on active warfare produces upon those who under different circumstances would evince apathy or irritability. Men nursed in the lap of luxury, and accustomed from childhood to all the elegancies of upper life, submitted to every privation without a murmur; while others, whose constitutional indolence was proverbial, seemed actuated by some secret impulse that spurred them to exertion, and roused a latent energy that was surprising even to themselves. Persons who at home would have dreaded injurious circumstances from a damp shoe, were too happy, on service in the Peninsula, to find the shelter of a roof and luxury of wet litter after a ten hours’ march over muddy roads, in rain, and storm, and darkness; and those whose Apician tastes were not unfrequently outraged by the culinary offendings of the most gifted mess-cook, cheerfully discussed the ration cut from the reeking carcass of an over-driven ox, and exchanged claret and champaign for aqua ardiente and vin du pays, flavouring more strongly of the goat-skin than the grape.”

It is true, that when cantoned the army were spared from these annoyances. The strict eye kept by Lord Wellington over the commissariat at these times, secured a plentiful supply of necessaries for the troops, and under huts or canvass they were tolerably protected from the weather; but at the sieges, the retreats, and the rapid advances in bad weather, nothing could surpass the misery endured through cold and heat, hunger and thirst, continued fatigue, and all the ills the soldier’s life is heir to.

Bright as the hour of triumph appears to the conqueror—brilliant as the foughten field that ends in victory—“the tale of war still bears a painful sound,” and many a heart-rending story of distress might be narrated attendant on the storms of Badajoz and Rodrigo, and the retreats to Corunna and the Lines. The state of the sick, the worn-out, and the wounded, were pitiable. Unable to extricate themselves, numbers, “with vulnerable wounds,” perished of cold and hunger in the ditches of the captured fortresses—or, after struggling to the last, died on the line of march, abandoned of necessity by their comrades, and ridden over or put down by merciless pursuers, who had neither leisure nor inclination to extend succour to these deserted sufferers.

In speaking of the retreat from Burgos, an infantry officer says,—“The privations which the army suffered were unusually severe: I saw many a brave fellow lying on the road, dying from fatigue, famine, and the inclemency of the weather. On one spot, about one hundred English and Portuguese soldiers lay extended after the retreat. One miserable instance, was a soldier of the ninety-fifth; having marched as far as he was able, at last he sunk from exhaustion, and crawled upon his hands and knees, until he expired.”

Another thus describes his misadventure. “We travelled the whole of that night, our army in full retreat, and the French in close pursuit; the weather wet and miserably cold, and the roads so drenched, it was up to the middle in mud; the animals were knocked up, and I unfortunately fell into the hands of the enemy, a French hussar regiment, who treated me vilely.

“They knocked the cart from under me, sabred the men, and dragged me into the middle of the road; stripped me, tearing my clothes into shreds, and turning me over with their sabres, plundered me of what little I had remaining; tore a gold ring from my finger, and then left me naked, to perish with cold and hunger.

“I lay in this miserable state two days and nights, with no mortal near me, except dead ones; one of which lay with his head upon my legs, having died in that position during the night preceding, and I was too weak to remove his body; I could not raise myself, I was so reduced.

“In this suffering state I continued to exist, which I attributed to some rum, of which I drank a considerable quantity from a Frenchman’s canteen, who was humane enough to let me do so, when I explained to him that I was a British officer: the rum soon laid me to sleep. The Frenchman was a hussar, and appeared to belong to the regiment who had treated me so inhumanly in the morning (it was now past dusk). I begged him to take me up behind him. He shook his head; but kindly took an old blanket from under his saddle, covered me with it, and then rode off.”

In this wretched state the narrator was discovered by an Irish soldier who turned out a true Samaritan.

“The poor fellow found me literally in a state of starvation, and took me upon his back (for I was quite helpless) to the village; begged food for me from door to door; but the inhuman Spaniards shut them in our faces, refusing me both shelter and food, at the same time they were actually baking bread for the French. However, my fellow-sufferer, by good chance, found a dead horse, and he supplied me with raw flesh and acorns; which, at the time, I thought a luxury, believe me, and devoured, when first given me, in such quantities, as nearly put an end to my sufferings.”

A very creditable exception must be made in favour of the Spanish women, who, during the Peninsular campaign, exhibited the greatest kindness towards the British, and afforded to the sick or wounded soldiery the most disinterested and devoted attention. In the higher classes this feeling was frequently indulged, even at the risk of family or personal proscription; and it would appear that among the humbler grade a warm sympathy existed towards their deliverers. “Two girls, daughters of the baker of the village, notwithstanding the threat of punishment to those who should relieve me, absolutely did, two or three times, bring me a little food saved from their own meals.”—Military Recollections of Four Brothers.

214 “The Spaniards, civil and military, began to evince hatred of the British. Daily did they attempt or perpetrate murder; and one act of peculiar atrocity merits notice. A horse, led by an English soldier, being frightened, backed against a Spanish officer commanding at a gate; he caused the soldier to be dragged into his guard-house and there bayonetted him in cold blood; and no redress could be had for this or other crimes save by counter violence, which was not long withheld. A Spanish officer, while wantonly stabbing at a rifleman, was shot dead by the latter; and a British volunteer slew a Spanish officer at the head of his own regiment in a sword fight, the troops of both nations looking on; but here there was nothing dishonourable on either side.”—Napier.

“Two of the handsomest men of the light company, M’Cann and Ludley, were billeted in a house containing a mother and her daughter, when one evening a Spaniard came in and invited them to take some wine with him, during which, it is supposed, in a fit of jealousy, he took the opportunity of stabbing them both to the heart. The assassin made his escape before the alarm could be given, as also did the mother and daughter; but our men were so exasperated, that they attacked the house, and in twenty minutes there was not one stone left upon another.”—Cadell.

215 “Sir,—I have ordered the army into cantonments, in which I hope that circumstances will enable me to keep them for some time, during which the troops will receive their clothing, necessaries, &c. which are already in progress, by different lines of communication, to the several divisions and brigades. But, besides these objects, I must draw your attention, in a very particular manner, to the state of discipline of the troops. The discipline of every army, after a long and active campaign, becomes in some degree relaxed, and requires the utmost attention on the part of the general and other officers to bring it back to the state in which it ought to be for service; but I am concerned to have to observe, that the army under my command has fallen off, in this respect, in the late campaign, to a greater degree than any army with which I have ever served, or of which I have ever read. Yet this army has met with no disaster; it has suffered no privations, which but trifling attention on the part of the officers could not have prevented, and for which there existed no reason whatever in the nature of the service; nor has it suffered any hardships, excepting those resulting from the necessity of being exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, at a moment when they were most severe. It must be obvious, however, to every officer, that from the moment the troops commenced their retreat from the neighbourhood of Burgos on the one hand, and from Madrid on the other, the officers lost all command over the men. Irregularities and outrages of all descriptions were committed with impunity; and losses have been sustained which ought never to have occurred. Yet the necessity for retreat existing, none was ever made in which the troops made such short marches; none on which they made such long and repeated halts; and none in which the retreating armies were so little pressed on their rear by the enemy. We must look, therefore, for the existing evils, and for the situation in which we now find the army, to some cause besides those resulting from the operations in which we have been engaged. I have no hesitation in attributing these evils to the habitual inattention of the officers of regiments to their duty, as prescribed by the standing regulations of the service, and by the order of this army. I am far from questioning the zeal, still less the gallantry and spirit of the officers of the army: and I am quite certain, that as their minds can be convinced of the necessity of minute and constant attention to understand, recollect, and carry into execution the orders which have been issued for the performance of their duty, and that the strict performance of this duty is necessary to enable the army to serve the country as it ought to be served, they will, in future, give their attention to these points. Unfortunately, the inexperience of the officers of the army has induced many to conceive, that the period during which an army is not on service is one of relaxation from all rule, instead of being, as it is, the period during which, of all others, every rule for the regulation and control of the conduct of the soldier, for the inspection and care of his arms, ammunition, accoutrements, necessaries, and field-equipments, and his horse and horse-appointments, for the receipt and issue and care of his provisions, and the regulation of all that belongs to his food, and the forage for his horse, must be most strictly attended to by the officers of his company or troop, if it is intended that an army—a British army in particular—shall be brought into the field of battle in a state of efficiency to meet the enemy on the day of trial. These are the points, then, to which I most earnestly entreat you to turn your attention, and the attention of the officers of the regiments under your command, Portuguese as well as English, during the period in which it may be in my power to leave the troops in their cantonments. The commanding officers of regiments must enforce the orders of the army, regarding the constant inspection and superintendence of the officers over the conduct of the men of their companies in their cantonments; and they must endeavour to inspire the non-commissioned officers with a sense of their situation and authority; and the non-commissioned officers must be forced to do their duty, by being constantly under the view and superintendence of the officers. By these means, the frequent and discreditable recourse to the authority of the provost, and to punishments by the sentence of courts-martial, will be prevented; and the soldiers will not dare to commit the offences and outrages, of which there are too many complaints, when they know that their officers and their non-commissioned officers have their eyes and attention turned towards them. The commanding officers of regiments must likewise enforce the orders of the army, regarding the constant real inspection of the soldiers’ arms, ammunition, accoutrements, and necessaries, in order to prevent, at all times, the shameful waste of ammunition, and the sale of that article, and of the soldiers’ necessaries. With this view, both should be inspected daily. In regard to the food of soldiers, I have frequently observed and lamented, in the late campaign, the facility and celerity with which the French soldiers cooked, in comparison with our army. The cause of this disadvantage is the same with that of every other description,—the want of attention of the officers to the orders of the army, and to the conduct of their men; and the consequent want of authority over their conduct. Certain men of each company should be appointed to cut and bring in wood, others to fetch water, and others to get the meat, &c. to be cooked; and it would soon be found, if this practice were daily enforced, and a particular hour for seeing the dinners, and for the men dining, named, as it ought to be, equally as for the parade, that cooking would no longer require the inconvenient length of time it has lately been found to take, and that the soldiers would not be exposed to the privation of their food, at the moment at which the army may be engaged in operations with the enemy. You will, of course, give your attention to the field-exercise and discipline of the troops. It is very desirable that the soldiers should not lose the habit of marching; and the division should march ten or twelve miles twice in each week, if the weather should permit, and the roads in the neighbourhood of the cantonments of the divisions should be dry. But I repeat, that the great object of the attention of the general and field officers must be, to get the captains and subalterns of the regiments to understand and to perform the duties required from them, as the only mode by which the discipline and efficiency of the army can be restored and maintained during the next campaign.

“I have the honour to be, &c.
“Wellington.”

“To ——, or the Officer commanding the ——.”

216 “Sometimes divisions were moved too soon, more frequently too late, and kept standing on wet ground, in the rain, for two hours, perishing with cold, waiting the order to move. Their clothes were seldom dry for six hours together, and during the latter part of the retreat continually wet; sometimes they were bivouacked in a swamp, when better ground was near; they lay down upon the wet ground, fell asleep from mere exhaustion, were roused to receive their meat, and had then no means of dressing it,—the camp-kettles had been sent on, or by some error were some miles in the rear, or the mules which carried them had foundered on the way; and no fire could be kindled on wet ground, with wet materials, and under a heavy rain. The subalterns threw the blame upon their superiors, and these again upon theirs, all complaining of incompetence in some of the general officers, and carelessness or supercilious neglect in some of the staff.”—Southey.

217 “But the hurry, and fear, and confusion, with which their preparations were made, defeated this malignant purpose. Several mines failed; some which were primed did not explode; others were so ill-managed that they blew the earth inwards; and as the explosion took place some hours sooner than was intended, the destruction which was intended for their enemies, fell in part upon themselves. Many of their men, who were lingering to plunder, perished as they were loading their horses with booty in the streets and squares, and three or four hundred were blown up in the fort. Above one thousand shells had been placed in the mines: the explosion was distinctly heard at the distance of fifty miles; and the pavement of the cathedral was covered with the dust into which its windows had been shivered by the shock. The town escaped destruction owing to the failure of so many of the mines, but the castle was totally destroyed,—gates, beams, masses of masonry, guns, carriages, and arms lying in one heap of ruins;—some of the mines had laid open the breaches, and exposed the remains of those who had fallen during the siege.”

218 “The Bivouac.”

219 “The city of Vitoria is said to have obtained its present name from a victory gained by Leuvigildus XVI., king of the Goths, over the Swevians, whose kingdom he conquered and added to his own, so early as towards the end of the sixth century. Its vicinity, however, having been the scene of the successful operations of Edward the Black Prince, in restoring to his dominions Don Pedro the Cruel, king of Castile, this will, it is hoped, be sufficient to justify the allusion to the name as twice associated with the glory of the English arms.

“The battle which overthrew Henry and restored Pedro to his kingdom, was fought betwixt Navarette and Nejara, on the right bank of the Ebro; but Froissart, in his Chronicles, mentions that before the Prince had crossed that river, he occupied for six days a position in front of Vitoria, probably near the scene of Wellington’s victory. He further mentions, that while in this position, Don Telo, Henry’s brother, having advanced to reconnoitre the Prince’s army, fell in with a body of English under Sir Thomas Felton, who, being much inferior in numbers, in the proportion of one hundred and sixty lances and three hundred archers to six thousand of the enemy, took possession of a height, where they defended themselves till the whole of the English knights, after performing prodigies of valour, were killed or made prisoners, none escaping, except a few boys by the fleetness of their horses.

“It may be mentioned as a curious incident, that during the battle, when Lord Wellington was giving directions for the third division to attack a height in possession of the enemy, the Spanish General Alava, who during the war was personally attached to Lord Wellington’s staff, remarked that the hill in question was, by the tradition of the country, known as the Altura de los Ingleses or Hill of the English: this is supposed to be the hill alluded to in the Chronicles.”—Mackie.

220 “The Bivouac.”

221 It is remarkable that, within sight of this ground, the battle of Najara was fought, in which Edward the Black Prince, acting as the ally of a bad man, defeated the best troops of France, under their most distinguished leader, Bertram du Guescelin, who had come in support of a worse. It is also remarkable, that the Prince of Brazil, before the battle of Vitoria was fought, should have conferred the title of Duque de Victoria upon Lord Wellington.—Southey.

222 “We chanced to meet a Curé on the French side of the Pyrenees, at whose house General Merle had been quartered, shortly after the battle, who said that the general was furious, exclaiming against Joseph, and vowing that the matériel of three armies (those of the south, the centre, and of Portugal) had been sacrificed to save fifty putaines and their baggage.”—Peninsular Recollections.

223 “General Morillo, with all his roughness and his ignorance, was an enthusiastic admirer of every thing English. Throughout the whole course of his various services during the war, he evinced a strong and marked feeling of attachment and respect for the troops of that country. He had raised himself from the lowest ranks by his enterprising courage and cordial exertion in forwarding every scheme or measure calculated, as he conceived, to resist French domination. He had obtained considerable authority over the division of Spaniards under his immediate orders; his courage was undoubted; his devotion to Sir Rowland Hill, with whom he had long served, unbounded. Under these circumstances, this officer, in most respects a very ordinary man, became known to the army, and his name identified with some degree of distinction.”—Leith Ilay.

224 “The Bivouac.”

225 “The Bivouac.”

226 “From the number of muskets left on the field, the wounded must have been very great: wounded men invariably get quit of every thing that incumbers their retreat; but a musket is scarcely ever to be seen whole, as the first comer always snaps it across the small of the stock.”—Peninsular Recollections.

227 “A squadron of the German hussars, however, overtook and engaged their rear-guard, near Pamplona: the enemy employed against the hussars the only long gun he had remaining; the hussars forced back the enemy; and as the gun was retiring on the high-road, a carbine shot struck one of the horses, which becoming unruly, the gun was dragged from the causeway and upset. The hussars immediately took possession of it.”

“The country was too much intersected with ditches for cavalry to act with effect in a pursuit; and infantry, who moved in military order, could not at their utmost speed keep up with a rout of fugitives. Yet, precipitate as their flight was, they took great pains to bear off their wounded, and dismounted a regiment of cavalry to carry them on. And they carefully endeavoured to conceal their dead, stopping occasionally to collect them and throw them into ditches, where they covered them with bushes. Many such receptacles were found containing from ten to twenty bodies.”

228 “It was rather more than a foot long, and covered with blue velvet, on which the imperial eagles were embroidered; and it had been tipped with gold, but the first finder had secured the gold for himself. The case was of red morocco, with silver clasps, and with eagles on it, and at either end the marshal’s name imprinted in gold letters.”—Southey.

229 “The Bivouac.”

230 Like the tidings of Marmont’s disaster at Salamanca, the news of Joseph’s defeat reached Napoleon at a crisis, when a lost battle was a calamity indeed. With him, every previous armistice had obtained concessions; and, had Vitoria terminated differently, battles, in no way decisive, might from a fortunate success in Spain, have produced results similar to those of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena. With ominous rapidity, the intelligence reached every European court that Joseph had been driven from his throne, and Wellington overlooked the fields of France—and none could gainsay it—a conqueror. With what astonishment these tidings were received, those immediately round the person of Napoleon have since narrated. Nothing could be more humiliating—nothing, the time considered, more ruinous. His brother no longer prosecuted the war in Spain, but, defeated and shaken in confidence, had sought shelter in the plains of Gascony. “Accustomed as he had been to receive reports from the Peninsula little calculated to give satisfaction, or to confirm his impression of the invincible qualities of those troops which he had personally ever led to certain victory, so extensive and alarming a reverse as that now made known must have been as unexpected as it was disastrous; but with all the promptitude of a person born to command, instead of yielding to gloomy circumstances, he issued orders for a bold effort to counteract the tide of war, to recover the ground lost by Vitoria, and to awaken to energy, as he conceived, the dormant spirit of his soldiers. Troops marched from the interior to reinforce, artillery from the depôts completed the equipment, and the marshal Duke of Dalmatia was entrusted with full powers to conduct the renewed hostilities, and retrieve the errors of his predecessors.”—Leith Hay.

231 “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.”