OPERATIONS OF THE ANGLO-SICILIAN ARMY. THE ALLIES ENTER FRANCE. PASSAGE OF THE BIDASSOA, THE NIVELLE, AND THE NIVE. TREATY BETWEEN BUONAPARTE AND FERDINAND, AND CONSEQUENT PROCEEDINGS OF THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT.

During the siege of S. Sebastian’s, some few hundred men, the remains of Romana’s army, who had not been able to effect their escape from the North, when their magnanimous general and their comrades went to take part in their country’s struggle, and most of them to perish in it, returned to Spain. The resistance to Buonaparte’s tyranny, which the Spaniards and Portugueze had begun, had prepared the way for the deliverance of the continent, and thus eventually restored them to their native land.

The Anglo-Sicilian army had no sooner returned to Alicante from its ill-conducted expedition against Tarragona, than every exertion was used for enabling it to take the field, and profit by the retreat of the enemy from Valencia. Lord William Bentinck entered that capital on the 9th of July, and leaving General Elio to observe Murviedro, proceeded with his own troops, and such of the Spaniards as he could ♦August.♦ find means of providing with subsistence, for in this essential point there was the greatest difficulty. Having arrived at Vinaroz, he detached a corps under Lieutenant-General Sir William Clinton by sea to Tarragona, in the hope of preventing the enemy from dismantling that fortress, if such should be their intention. When the fleet arrived off Tarragona, a French force was discovered in its vicinity; but there were no indications of any such purpose. The detachment, therefore, landed at the Col de Balaguer; and there, Lord William, having crossed the Ebro at Amposta on flying bridges, joined him with the advance of the army, some cavalry, and artillery; the whole then moved forward to the village of Cambrils, and on the first of August they invested Tarragona: that operation was well performed, and cover was obtained three hundred yards nearer than the most advanced point which had been occupied during the previous attack. Preparations were now observable in the place for its destruction; but it was evident that the ♦Col. Jones’s account, V. 2. 201.♦ garrison could not effect this in the presence of the allied army, unless Marshal Suchet came in force to cover the operation. That general was at Barcelona; his troops were at Villafranca and at Villanova de Sitges, being thus divided to lessen the difficulty of subsisting them; and his advance was at Arbos and at Vendrell: sometimes he seemed to be menacing a movement against the allies, and sometimes preparing for a farther retreat. Lord William, with such an enemy in such force so near, would not expose himself to a failure like that of Sir John Murray; and he deferred beginning the siege and landing his heavy artillery, till the Duque del Parque’s army should come up, and Sarsfield with his Catalan troops. The Duque joined on the third; the Catalans were actively employed upon the right flank of Suchet’s divisions, cutting off his supplies; and on the 7th they surprised a battalion who were guarding the mills at S. Sadurni, and occasioned them a loss of 200 men. Sarsfield joined on the 11th. But as the appearance of the allies before Tarragona prevented the garrison from demolishing the works, so on the other hand it gave Marshal Suchet time for bringing together as large a force as he thought the occasion required. The British general, like Generals Maitland and Murray before him, felt all the difficulties of his situation; he was conscious that his ill-composed army was far from being efficient in proportion to its numerical strength; he had no means of feeding the Spanish part of that army if the enemy should manœuvre upon his flank, so as to cut off the supplies which they obtained from the country; he had found it impracticable to throw a bridge over the Ebro; and should he be compelled in his present situation to retreat, the ships could not take off more than a third of his forces. But while the prudence of remaining in that situation became a serious question, preparations for breaking ground were carried on.

Suchet meantime acting as if he were opposed to a much greater force, had waited till Generals Decaen, Maurice Mathieu, and Maximien Lamarque could join him with 8000 men belonging to the army of Catalonia; with this accession his numbers were estimated at from 27,000 to 30,000. They effected their junction at Villafranca on the 14th. The first attempt was by the coast road; but Admiral Hallowell effectually checked this movement, by stationing his troops as close as possible to the low sandy shore in front of the Torre del Barra. On the ensuing morning Lord William was informed that a large body of the French were advancing through the inland country by the Col de Santa Christina; and in the evening a sharp skirmish took place between the advance of hussars and the cavalry under Colonel Lord Frederick Bentinck, which he sent forward to observe their motions: in this the Brunswick hussars distinguished themselves, repulsing the enemy and making several prisoners. Suchet advanced rapidly beyond the Gaya that day, while Decaen advanced upon Valls and the Francoli. Lord William did not deem it prudent to risk a general action before Tarragona; at nightfall, therefore, he commenced his retreat, and when day broke the whole army was out of sight of the city; the British, Germans, and Sicilians, covering the road towards Tortosa, took up a position near Cambrils. Sarsfield occupied Reus; and the Duque del Parque was directed to proceed to the Col de Balaguer, where, if Suchet should push the retreating army so as to make a general action necessary, it was intended to await his attack. But the French commander had no such ♦The French abandon Tarragona.♦ purpose; his present object was to bring off the garrison from Tarragona, and to demolish its fortifications, so that they might afford no support to the allies. On the night of the 18th the works were blown up; and Marshal Suchet then withdrew for ever from a place where, by the premeditated atrocities which were committed at its capture, he has fixed upon his memory an indelible stain. The demolition was effectual: the artillery consisted of about 200 pieces of brass ordnance and 46 iron mortars; 50 of the former were left uninjured; and he did not tarry long enough to destroy the quantity of warlike stores which he had not the means of removing. Sarsfield on the following day took possession of the city.

Suchet soon fell back upon the line of the Llobregat, having drained the plain of Villafranca of its resources. In a country thus exhausted, General Copons declared it was not possible to provide for the whole Spanish force under Lord William’s command; and in consequence of this, and upon erroneous information that part of the French troops had been detached to aid Marshal Soult, the British general, conformably to an arrangement made with Lord Wellington, sent the Duque del Parque, with the 4th Spanish army, to Zaragoza; and he reinforced the corps, then employed under Elio, in the blockade of Tortosa. Early in September he concentrated the greater part of his remaining force at Villafranca. At this time Marshal Soult had proposed to Suchet that he should cross the Pyrenees with the whole disposable force of the armies of Aragon and Catalonia, and unite with him at Tarbes and at Pau, for the purpose of re-entering Spain together by Oleron and Jaca, and making another effort for the relief of Pamplona. A different project was offered to his consideration by the minister at war, ... that he should as much as possible occupy the enemy upon the Ebro: in either case a reinforcement of conscripts was to be counted on. The difficulties in the way of the first plan were soon perceived by Soult himself to be insurmountable; and Suchet represented the danger of drawing after him the Anglo-Sicilian army into the southern departments of France, which were defenceless. But as a practicable though a perilous operation, he offered to advance between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, with 70 pieces of field and 30 of mountain artillery, to meet Soult, who might debouche from Jaca with his infantry and cavalry, but without cannon. But for this two things were necessary, ... that he should have conscripts to place in the garrisons, and that before he marched from Catalonia he should defeat the Anglo-Sicilians.

Lord William’s numbers were not equal to those which could be brought against him, the want both of provisions and means of transport having obliged him to leave Whittingham’s division at Reus and Valls; but he had no suspicion that Suchet would advance against him. His army was posted at Villafranca and in the villages in its front, as far as the mountains on the Llobregat; the advance, under Colonel Adams, consisting of the 27th British regiment, one Calabrian and three Spanish battalions, with four mountain guns, occupied the pass of Ordal, on the main road, about ten miles in their front, and the same distance from the enemy’s posts on the Llobregat. The pass was so strong that Lord William was without any apprehension of its being forced, especially as he thought the probable point of attack ♦Suchet surprises the allies at the pass of Ordal.♦ would be by turning his left at Martorell and San Sadurni, where Copons was posted. Nor, indeed, was it likely Suchet would have confined himself to the front attack of a position which was strong there, but open on both flanks, unless, because such an attack was improbable, he thought the enemy might be taken there by surprise, before they had strengthened the post.

Accordingly, having concerted his plans with General Decaen, he collected the divisions of Harispe and Habert, with his cavalry at the bridge of Molins del Rey, and at eight o’clock on the night of the 12th moved for the pass. The allies were reposing in position, when about midnight their piquets were rapidly driven in, and they were presently attacked in force. An old work which commanded the main road was well defended by the Calabrians, till they were driven from it by the repeated attacks of superior numbers; they rallied then about sixty paces in rear of it, behind some old ruins, and there, in conjunction with the Spaniards, who were close on their left, stood their ground some time longer. But in a night attack the assailants, acting upon ground with which they were well acquainted, and on a concerted plan, had greatly the advantage over a very inferior force who were taken by surprise. Colonel Adams and the two officers next in succession to him were badly wounded, and obliged to quit the field; owing to the changes this occasioned, the regular directions were interrupted, and the ground in consequence was disputed much longer than it ought to have been against a force so greatly superior, both British and Spaniards maintaining it so resolutely that the right and the centre were nearly destroyed in their position. The Calabrian corps on the left fell back along the hills, and endeavoured to reach San Sadurni, which Manso occupied with his brigade. Their hope was to rejoin the army by the road leading from thence to Villafranca; but after crossing the river Noya, in front of San Sadurni, they were attacked by a considerable column, and forced back toward the Barcelona road: they succeeded, however, in making their way to Sitges, and there effected their embarkation on the following night. The guns were taken by the enemy, but most of the fugitives joined Manso.

As soon as the attack was known at head-quarters, Lord William put the army in motion to sustain his advance; but before any reinforcements could reach the spot, the French had carried every point, and it remained for him then either to retreat without loss of time, or give battle to an enemy superior in numbers and flushed with success, upon ground which afforded no advantage of position. He determined therefore upon retiring; Major-General Mackenzie, with the 2d division, covered the retreat during the most difficult part of its execution, to the village of Monjoz; Sarsfield moved to the left of Villafranca, by the hilly and woody country on that side; and the British, Germans, and Sicilians, took the main road by the villages of Monjoz and Arbos. Marshal Suchet expected that Decaen would arrive before Villafranca in time to co-operate with him, and force the allies to an action; but that general had to cross the Llobregat and the Noya, and was delayed also in the defiles by Manso, and by the Calabrese, with whom he fell in when they were making for San Sadurni. His own cuirassiers and dragoons, under General Meyer, pressed with very superior numbers, near Monjoz, upon the cavalry under Lord Frederic Bentinck, who covered the retreat, and some sabre strokes were exchanged between the two leaders. At length a most timely and vigorous charge was made simultaneously by Lord Frederic with the 20th dragoons, under Lieutenant-Colonel Hawker, and the Sicilians, and by Lieutenant-Colonel Schrader with the German hussars, by which the enemy were driven back, and so completely checked, that they made no farther attempt upon the retreating army; so it reached Vendrells that evening, without any loss. During the night it retired to Altafulla, and on the evening following took up its ground in front of Tarragona, as the nearest protecting situation; the Spaniards, under Sarsfield, moving upon Reus. The ruins of Tarragona could have afforded little support if the allies had not been better protected by their own strength, and by the opinion which Suchet had learned to entertain of them. He advanced no farther than Villafranca in pursuit; and after exacting a contribution from the distressed inhabitants, returned to Barcelona.

At this time the uneasy state of affairs in Sicily, and the ill success of political changes there, as premature as they were well intended, rendered it necessary for Lord William Bentinck to repair thither, and the command of the army devolved upon Lieutenant-General Sir William Clinton. That general was left with an inadequate force, and under discouraging circumstances, to attend to objects which were of no inconsiderable importance to the common cause. He had to provide against the likelihood of Suchet’s availing himself of his late success to relieve or to withdraw his garrisons in Valencia or on the Ebro; and he had to occupy the attention of that able commander so as to prevent him from sending any considerable detachment to take part in Soult’s operations against Lord Wellington. It was found impracticable to construct a bridge upon the Ebro as low down as Amposta; and if it had not been so, he could not have spared troops enough from other more important services, to protect it against the sallies of the strong garrison in Tortosa. The best course therefore which he could pursue seemed to be that of repairing the defences of Tarragona, as far as time and means permitted, so as to render it a point of support. Well was it for the Anglo-Sicilian army that, notwithstanding the credit it had lost by Sir John Murray’s precipitate retreat, and the recent loss which it had sustained at Ordal, it had yet impressed Marshal Suchet with a most respectable opinion of its ability in the field; skilful as he was, nothing but that opinion withheld him from acting vigorously against it when he had it so greatly at advantage. His disposable force at this time was not short of 25,000 men, with a large body of cavalry; better troops he could not desire; and their supplies were protected by the possession of several important fortresses, all which were garrisoned well. The Anglo-Sicilian army amounted barely to 12,000 effective men, including a small body of cavalry; about half of these were British and Germans, the remainder Italians and Sicilians in British pay, on whom, though they were not ill-disciplined, the same confidence could not be placed in the presence of an enemy. There were about 11,000 Spanish troops whose services General Clinton might have commanded, if there had been means for rendering them available, but they were in a state almost of destitution; without pay, ill-clothed, and worse fed; and he had no control (as his predecessors had had) over the first Spanish army, which army also was prevented by its wants from taking the field, except occasionally, and then from keeping it, except for a very short time. With the commander of that army, General Copons, and with the other leaders, the best understanding prevailed; nor indeed were there among all the Spaniards better men or more distinguished officers than some of them, ... the names of Manso and Eroles will be held in honour as long as the Catalans retain any of that national spirit by which they are so honourably distinguished. They might be expected to check any movement of the enemy on the side of Lerida, or towards Tarragona; and to interrupt their communication with France along the inland road, by which their supplies were principally brought; but direct co-operation was not to be looked for where there was no unity of command, and ... on the one part ... all but a total want of means. Even the troops in British pay suffered great privations, their communication with the depôts at Malta and Gibraltar being interrupted because of the plague. But the tide of the enemy’s fortunes had now turned; and all difficulties were met cheerfully by the allies, in the sure hope that their perseverance would soon be crowned with success. As soon as arrangements were made for restoring the works at Tarragona, and for supplying as far as possible the Spaniards who were attached to the Anglo-Sicilian army, head-quarters were established at Villafranca; the troops which had been cantoned at Reus, Valls, and other places in the environs of Tarragona, were ordered to occupy an advanced line of cantonments: a force, consisting of cavalry, with some field artillery, and Sarsfield’s Spanish division of about 5000 infantry, were stationed at Villafranca; the enemy’s movements on the Llobregat were narrowly observed; and the remainder of the allied troops (with the exception of those who carried on the works at Tarragona) were so distributed, that, upon any emergency, they could be assembled at Villafranca in four-and-twenty hours.

Meantime, on the opposite side of the peninsula, an ♦Position of the armies on the Pyrenean frontier.♦ interval of seeming inactivity had followed the capture of S. Sebastian’s; but the time, though marked by no military movements, was busily employed in preparing for them, by closing up the troops, replacing the ammunition, and re-organizing those divisions which had suffered most. The opposing armies were in sight of each other. There was something mournful as well as impressive to a thoughtful mind in the contrast between the stupendous scenery of the Pyrenees and the diminutive appearance of field-works, and large armies upon such a theatre: “the little huts, and the less beings who inhabited them,” might have been overlooked as mere specks in the prospect, had it not been for the more mournful knowledge that these tens of thousands were collected there for life or for death; one party having been sent thither by the wicked will of an individual drunk with ambition, and the other brought there by the duty and necessity of resisting his lust of power. The troops who covered the blockade of Pamplona suffered severely from wet and cold, and were unavoidably subject to privations from which their more fortunate comrades near the coast were exempt. When the clouds opened they could see the fertile country of the enemy beneath them, in sunshine. During the weeks of hard, irksome duty, passed thus in a situation where exertion and enterprise were not required, but in their stead continual vigilance and patience, desertions became frequent; they were most numerous, as might be expected, among the Spaniards, because they were in their own country; and least, in a remarkable degree, among2 the Portugueze.

It was now no longer in Buonaparte’s power to allot conscripts by the hundred thousand for the consumption ♦Levy ordered in France for Soult’s army.♦ of his war in the Peninsula. A levy of 30,000 was all that could be ordered to reinforce Soult’s army; “the armies of Spain, it was admitted, having been compelled to yield before ♦Speech of M. Regnaud.♦ superior numbers, and the advantages which the enemy drew from their maritime communications, needed reinforcement; for England, while in the north of Europe it lavished its intrigues and its promises, was not less lavish in the south of its resources and sacrifices. The proposed levy, however, raised in the departments adjacent to the Pyrenees, would suffice to stop the successes upon which the enemy were congratulating themselves too soon; it would suffice for resuming the attitude which became France, and for preparing the moment when England should no longer dispose of the treasures of Mexico, for the devastation of both the Spains!” This was the language of M. Regnaud de St. Jean d’Angely in an official speech; and the senator, M. le Comte de Beurnonville, making a report in the name of a special commission, spake in the same strain, ... a strain that becomes doubly curious when compared with the events which were so soon to follow. “England,” said he, “who intrigues much and hazards little, has not dared to compromise her land forces by sending them to combat in the north of Germany, and uniting them with the Russian and Prussian phalanxes; she feared reverses which she could not but foresee, and which for her would be irreparable. In this thorny conjuncture, and that it might have the air of doing something for the powers whom it had set to play, the cabinet of London had preferred mingling the English troops with the Spanish and Portugueze bands, being sure that it could withdraw them without inconvenience, according to its interest. Hence that sudden augmentation of its force, which had determined our armies to a retrograde movement; and these bands, encouraged by some ephemeral successes, have carried their audacity so far as to invest the places of S. Sebastian’s and Pamplona.” ... Buonaparte’s ministers never thought proper to inform the senate that these bands soon carried their audacity a little farther, and took them both. “The proposed levy,” it was added, “would enable the French armies of the Peninsula to resume their ancient attitude.”

The orator, and the special commission for whom he spake, were mistaken: it was England who resumed her ancient attitude, ... who re-asserted and resumed her military superiority upon that ground where her Plantagenets had displayed it. Her victorious armies were at this time preparing to plant their banners in France, leading thus the way to the general invasion of what the French in the pride of their military strength had called the sacred territory. As soon, indeed, as the enemy had been driven beyond the Pyrenees, the army had looked forward to this with all the pride of the military spirit, and of excited national feeling: the Spaniards and Portugueze talked of retribution and revenge; and among the British, the question was discussed whether or not they were to be freebooters. That question was answered by Lord Wellington in the general order which he issued as soon as the troops encamped among the Pyrenees. “The commander of the forces,” said he, “is anxious to draw the attention of the officers of the army to the difference of the situation in which they have been hitherto, among the people of Portugal and Spain, and that in which they may hereafter find themselves, among those of the frontiers of France.” After observing that every military endeavour must thenceforth be used for obtaining intelligence, and preventing surprise, he proceeded to say that, notwithstanding the utmost precautions were absolutely necessary, as the country in front of the army was the enemy’s, he was particularly desirous that the inhabitants should be well treated, and private property respected, as it had been till that time. The officers and soldiers of the army, said he, must recollect, that their nations are at war with France solely because the Ruler of the French nation will not allow them to be at peace, and is desirous of forcing them to submit to his yoke; and they must not forget that the worst of the evils suffered by the enemy in his profligate invasion of Spain and Portugal have been occasioned by the irregularities of the soldiers and their cruelties, authorized and encouraged by their chiefs, towards the unfortunate and peaceful inhabitants of the country. To revenge this conduct on the peaceable inhabitants of France would be unmanly and unworthy of the nations to whom the commander of the forces now addresses himself; and at all events would be the occasion of similar and worse evils to the army at large, than those which ♦General orders, July 9, 1813.♦ the enemy’s army have suffered in the Peninsula, and would eventually prove highly injurious to the public interest.

Though it was not possible to act on the offensive upon a great scale, till Pamplona should have surrendered, Lord Wellington determined with the left wing of his army to cross the Bidassoa, and dislodge the enemy from some strong ground which they occupied on the right of that river as an advanced position; the key to it being the high steep mountain called La Rhune, which fronts the passes of Vera and Etchalar. Mount La Rhune is a remarkable spot; and its possession had been obstinately contested in the campaign of 1794, because its summit served as a watch-tower from whence the whole country between Bayonne and the Pyrenees might be observed. The mountain itself is within the French territory, but there is a chapel, or, in Romish language, a hermitage, on its summit, which used to be supported at the joint expense of the villages of Vera in Spain, and of Sarré, Ascain, and Urogne, in France; people of different nations, and hostile feelings, being there drawn together by the bond of their common faith.... The right of the army being at Roncesvalles and Maya, could at any time descend from its commanding situation into France.

The Bidassoa, a river not otherwise remarkable than as forming the boundary of two great kingdoms, rises on Mount Belat, flows down the valley of Bastan, and, spreading into a broad stream after it has passed Irun, enters the Bay of Biscay between the Point of Figueras (a rocky promontory in which Mount Jaysquibel terminates) and the heights on the French side. Mount Jaysquibel, which extends along the coast from Passages to this point (its highest elevation being about 1700 feet), is separated from the chain of the Pyrenees by a broad valley, along which the Vittoria road passes; at its foot stands the old and melancholy town of Fontarabia, ... a name which Milton has made familiar to English ears; the river rising sixteen feet there, and forming a tide harbour, washes the ruins of its walls, which were blown up in the war of 1794; but when the tide is out there is a considerable extent of sand on both sides of the stream. The little town of Andaye, famed for its brandy, is on the French shore opposite. The bridge, which the enemy had destroyed in their retreat, is about a mile from Irun, and a little below it is the Isle of Pheasants, better known by its later name from the Conference held there in 1660, which brought in its consequences so many evils, not upon Spain alone, but upon the greater part of Europe. Between this island and the mouth of the river three fords had been discovered: Spanish fishermen had been employed in this service, and they performed it so well, as if pursuing the while their ordinary occupation, that the French sentries on the opposite bank never suspected their intent.

A stronger position as to all natural advantages can hardly be imagined than that which the allies were to attack, after they should have crossed the Bidassoa; the French had strengthened it by redoubts, by abattis, and intrenchments at every knoll; the paths were hardly practicable; it was laborious work even for an unarmed man to reach points which were now to be assailed in the face of an enemy perfectly prepared. But it was necessary to advance from a country where the nature of the ground rendered it difficult to support the troops; and where supplies for many of the corps were carried to the mountain encampments on the heads of men and women, long strings of whom were to be seen toiling up the steep and slippery ascents. Preparations for the attack were made on the 6th, and the troops were under arms and in motion soon after midnight. The tents were left standing, that the enemy might discover no signs when dawn appeared of the intended movement. It was a stormy night, with thunder and lightning, and some rain, ... the rain not enough in any way to impede or increase the difficulties of the attempt, and the storm in other respects favouring it; for it moved in the same direction as the troops, and prevented the enemy from hearing the noise of the artillery and pontoon train. The storm was succeeded by an extraordinary sultry heat, what little wind there was feeling like the breath of an oven. The 1st and 5th divisions, with Wilson’s Portugueze brigade, were to cross the river in three columns below, and one above, the bridge, and carry the French intrenchments about and above Andaye; and General Freyre, with the Spaniards, was to cross in three columns at the higher ford, and turn the enemy’s left by carrying their intrenchments on the Montagne Verte, and on the heights of Mandale. The troops arrived at their appointed stations without having been noticed; and every thing thus far had been so fortunately performed, that the enemy did not begin to fire till the heads of the columns were nearly half over, when a rocket was discharged from the steeple at Fontarabia, as the signal for the simultaneous advance of the troops above.

Every thing succeeded perfectly. The 5th division was the first that set foot on the French soil; they advanced under a brisk fire from the enemy’s piquets, against the line which was hastily forming on the nearest range of hills. The first came presently up, and the enemy were driven from the works. Freyre was equally successful on his side; the Spaniards rushed down the mountain, forded the river, and carried the Montagne Verte. The affair began at eight, and at nine it was seen that the huts of the mountain post had been set on fire and abandoned. Meantime Baron Alten, with the light division, and with Longa’s, attacked and forced the intrenchments on the Puerto de Vera; and Giron, still farther on the right, attacked their position on Mount La Rhune. The light division drove them from redoubts, and intrenchments, and abattis, such, in the words of a distinguished officer then present, “as men ought to have defended for ever;” and the Spaniards, in like manner, carried every thing before them, till they reached the foot of the rock on which the hermitage stands, which on that side presents a craggy cliff, though on the other it is accessible by a gentle slope. Even that post the Spaniards made several attempts to carry by storm, which failed only because it was impossible to ascend there; the enemy, therefore, remained in possession of the hermitage that night, and of a rock on the same range of mountains with the right of the Spanish troops. ♦Batty’s Campaign in the Western Pyrenees, p. 28.♦ In all other parts the firing had ceased early in the afternoon, here it was kept up till late at night; and the conical outline of the mountain was seen far and wide by the light of this awful illumination. Some time elapsed on the following morning before the fog cleared away sufficiently for Lord Wellington to reconnoitre Mount La Rhune, the prominent mountain there, towering above its neighbours; he perceived that it was least difficult of access on its right, and that the attack might advantageously be connected with that on the enemy’s works in front of the camp of Sarré. Accordingly, he ordered the army of reserve to concentrate to their right: Giron at the same time attacked the post on the rock, and won it most gallantly; his troops followed up their success, and carried an intrenchment upon a hill which protected the right of the camp: the enemy immediately evacuated all their works in order to defend the approaches to their camp, and these posts were occupied by detachments which Lord Dalhousie sent from the 7th division through the Puerto de Etchalar for this purpose. Giron then established a battalion on the enemy’s left upon Mount La Rhune. Night, opportunely for the enemy, prevented farther operations; they retired under cover of the darkness both from the hermitage and the camp, and the allied armies pitched their tents in France. The British loss in these two days was 579 killed, wounded, and missing; that of the Portugueze 233; that of the Spaniards 750. Sir Thomas Graham, having thus established within the French territory the troops who had so often been distinguished under his direction, resigned the command to Lieutenant-General Sir John Hope, who had arrived from Ireland the preceding day, and departed himself to take a command in the Low Countries. As soon as the left of the allied army had made this important movement, the enemy moved General Paris’s division from Oleron to the neighbourhood of St. Jean de Pied-de-Port, and on the night of the 12th they surprised and carried a redoubt in front of the camp of Sarré, taking prisoners a piquet of forty Spaniards, and one hundred pioneers. The redoubt was farther from the line, and from the ground from whence it could be supported, than Lord Wellington had supposed when he gave orders for occupying it; he left it, therefore, now in their possession. On the following morning they made an attack upon the advanced posts of the Andalusian army, hoping to regain the works which they had constructed in front of the camp; but they were repulsed with little difficulty.

The country which was now occupied by the contending armies had been well disputed in the years 1793 and 1794, during the heat of the French revolution, and men whose names afterwards became conspicuous served at that time in both armies: Mendizabal and the high-minded Romana among the Spaniards; among the French, Latour d’Auvergne; Moncey, one of the few French Marshals who brought no reproach upon himself by rapacity or cruelty; and Laborde, who will be remembered in Portugal for both, and for having been the first French General whom Lord Wellington defeated. In that war the Spaniards fought with the manifold disadvantage of having a wretched administration, an ill-disciplined and worse provided army, and a revolutionary spirit showing itself in some of their own countrymen; yet they made a longer and sturdier resistance in the Pyrenees than the French displayed when it was now their turn to defend the passes and protect their own country from invasion. But, honourable as it was for the armies of England, Portugal, and Spain thus to have driven the enemy from Lisbon and Cadiz to the Pyrenees, and pursued him into his own territories, the spirit in which that invasion was undertaken was not less honourable to the allied nations than the success of their arms. The French, indeed, as soon as they apprehended that their own country must soon become the seat of war, spoke with horror of what might be expected from the Portugueze and Spaniards, remembering then with uneasiness, if not with shame and remorse, the atrocities which they themselves had committed. Their hope was that the peasantry would rise, and carry on that kind of war which within the Peninsula had been found so destructive to the invaders; and no endeavour was omitted for exciting them to such a course. But a circumstance had happened to check this spirit upon its first manifestation, a few days before the passage of the ♦Conduct of the French peasantry.♦ Bidassoa. The Portugueze, when they surprised and took a French piquet on the side of Roncesvalles, were fired at by the peasantry: they took fourteen of them, and these men were immediately marched to Passages, there to be embarked for England as prisoners of war. This treatment had the effect of intimidating the people, while it awakened no spirit of vengeance, because it was perceived to be nothing more than what was strictly just. That spirit might have been roused if Lord Wellington had not by timely severity effectually checked the license which the troops were but too ready to have taken, and from which it had not been possible to protect the Spaniards in the Pyrenean valleys. The French peasantry did not forsake their houses when the allies crossed the Bidassoa. The inhabitants of the large village of Urogne did not leave it till the battle approached, and then they collected in an adjoining field; but they dispersed as soon as flames broke out among their dwellings; for the troops who entered it began to plunder ... they set several houses on fire, and drank to such excess that, had the enemy been on the alert, he might easily have captured or destroyed them. Some of the officers were more culpable than the troops, for they used no exertions to prevent the outrages which they saw. Lord Wellington, as soon as he was informed of this misconduct, republished his former orders, and accompanied them with a severe reprimand, declaring his determination not to command officers who would not obey his orders, and of sending some of them, who had been thus grossly unmindful of their duty, to England, that their names might be brought under the notice of the Prince Regent.

It was now seen how much the moral conduct and character of an army depends upon its general. Lord Melville once made the monstrous assertion in Parliament that the worst men were the fittest for soldiers. His strong understanding should have taught him better, if his heart had failed to do so; and he was properly rebuked for it by the Duke of Gloucester, who observed, that the men who had the strictest sense of their personal duties were those who served their country with most patience and most fidelity in war. But Mr. Wyndham’s hope of recruiting our armies with men of a better description than those who used to be forced or inveigled into it, or driven by desperation to enlist, had not been realized, and the want of moral and religious training was still left to be supplied by military discipline ... as far as that could supply it. Lord Wellington enforced that means; and it is not the least of his many and eminent merits, that he made such means effectual, without bringing upon himself any reproach for undue severity. After the excesses at Urogne, not an inhabitant was to be seen in the French territory; they had withdrawn more because of these outrages, than in obedience to the injunctions of their own government. But a proclamation was issued in French and Basque, assuring them that their persons and property should be respected. Some necessary examples of justice upon those who ventured to violate orders so emphatically repeated, convinced the inhabitants that they might trust to the word of the British general; and, after those examples had been made, never, perhaps, since the days of the great Gustavus, was such excellent discipline observed in an enemy’s country. Even the Portugueze and Spaniards, whom it might have been thought almost impossible to restrain from giving way to that desire of vengeance which had been so wantonly, cruelly, and insolently provoked, obeyed the injunction of the great commander who had beaten their invaders out of Portugal and Spain, and demeaned themselves with such good order and humanity, that the French often said their own armies were the foes whom they dreaded.

Two pontoon bridges, and one bridge of boats, were laid over the Bidassoa immediately after the passage had been effected; and works were thrown up to strengthen the position, in which Lord Wellington now waited for the surrender of Pamplona, that he might advance with his whole strength. That city, the modern capital of Navarre (Olite, now a miserably decayed place, was the ancient one), was the great bulwark against the French on that side. Lord Wellington trusted to a sure blockade for reducing it. Its wells supply it abundantly with water; and it was provided with a corn-mill, the largest in existence of its kind, to be worked by hand or by horses, and setting in motion four or five grindstones of such dimensions that four-and-twenty loads of wheat could be ground by each in a day. When corn began to fail for this well-constructed mill, and there was little prospect of relief after the failure of Soult’s great effort in the Pyrenees, the governor made a bold attempt to obtain subsistence from the very force which blockaded him: he sent to Don Carlos d’España, requiring him to furnish 7000 rations daily for the inhabitants of the city, whom, he said, he could no longer afford to feed. Don Carlos, who knew that the French general had, with characteristic effrontery, included his troops in this estimate, replied, that, unless the inhabitants were fed as well as the garrison, while any food lasted, he should hold the governor responsible for their treatment, and would strictly inquire into this when the place should be surrendered, as it must. When the stores were nearly exhausted it was reported and believed that the enemy intended, as they had done at Almeida, to blow up the works, and endeavour to effect their escape: the attempt would have been far more hazardous; but it is said to have been prevented by an intimation from Don Carlos, that if the place were thus injured he would put the governor and all the officers to death, and decimate the men. Towards the end of October they proposed to surrender, on condition of being allowed to march into France with six pieces of cannon; their second proposal was, that they should march thither under an engagement of not serving against the allies for a year and a day. Don Carlos replied, that he had orders not to grant them a capitulation on any terms excepting that they should be prisoners of war; and to this they declared they would never submit. Upon these terms, nevertheless, on the last day of October, they surrendered, being 4000 in number; and the Spanish general, setting an example of proper determination on such an occasion, refused to grant these till he had ascertained that none of the inhabitants had perished during the blockade either through ill-treatment or for want.

Marshal Soult, meantime, was receiving a considerable reinforcement of conscripts. Papers in all the languages of the allies were thrown into the outposts, and distributed wherever it was likely they might be found, inviting deserters, and denouncing vengeance if France should be invaded: the whole French nation, it was said, was in arms, and if the English and Spanish and Portugueze should set foot upon their territory, they should meet with nothing but death and destruction. Some expectation the French commander placed upon the hardships to which the troops must be exposed, at that season, in the Pyrenees, upon the weather, and in consequence the increased difficulty of supplying the allied armies. Forage, indeed, had become so scarce that some of the cavalry were reduced to graze their horses, which of course could not long have been kept in condition without better food. The cattle brought for the consumption of the troops through a great part of Spain arrived in a jaded and lean condition, ... those which lived to reach the place of slaughter, ... for the roads along which they had been driven might easily be traced by their numerous carcasses, ♦November.♦ lying half-buried or unburied by the way-side, ... sad proofs of the wasteful inhumanity of war! The weather had been more stormy than was usual even on that coast and at that season. The transports at Passages were moored stem and stern in rows, and strongly confined by their moorings; yet they were considered in danger even in that land-locked harbour: some were driven forward by the rising of the swell, while others, close alongside, were forced backward by its fall, so that the bowsprits of some were entangled in the mizen-chains of others. The cold on the mountains was so intense that several men perished. A piquet in the neighbourhood of Roncesvalles was snowed up: the parties who were sent to rescue it drove bullocks before them as some precaution against the danger of falling into chasms, and the men were brought off; but the guns could not be removed, and were buried under the snow in the ditch of the redoubt. Soult, since his failure in the Pyrenees three months before, had been fortifying a formidable line of works in them. The right rested upon the sea in front of S. Jean de Luz, and on the left of the Nivelle; the centre on La Petite Rhune, and the heights behind the village of Sarré; the left, consisting of two divisions of infantry, under General Drouet, was on the right of the river, on a strong height behind the village of Ainhoue, and on the mountain of Mondarin, which protected the approach to that village. Two divisions, under Generals Foy and Paris, were at St. Jean de Pied-de-Port. This position described half a circle through Irogne, Ascain, Sarré, Ainhoue, Espelette, and Cambo, the centre projecting very much at Sarré. La Petite Rhune, though overtopped by the greater hill of the same name, from which it is separated by a narrow valley, is a very high ridge: from the sea to its foot the enemy’s front was covered by a range of works: the ridge itself was strongly fortified; and a range of high steep hills, extending from thence to Ainhoue, was defended by a chain of redoubts near enough to protect each other. The enemy’s centre was in great force upon this range; and there was a strong corps in the village of Sarré, which was protected by a regular closed work with ditch and palisades. Their left was thrown back, at nearly an acute angle, upon Espelette.