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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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 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.

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.

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.