CHAPTER III.
Turning from the war in Catalonia to the operations1813. June. in Navarre and Guipuscoa, we shall find lord Wellington’s indomitable energy overcoming every difficulty. It has been already shown how, changing his first views, he disposed the Anglo-Portuguese divisions to cover the siege of San Sebastian and the blockade of Pampeluna, at the same time attacking with the Spanish divisions Santona on the coast, and the castles of Daroca, Morella, Zaragoza, and the forts of Pancorbo in the interior. These operations required many men, but the early fall of Pancorbo enabled O’Donnel’s reserve to blockade Pampeluna, and Don Carlos D’España’s division, four thousand strong, which had remained at Miranda del Castanar to improve its organization when lord Wellington advanced to the Ebro, was approaching to reinforce him.
The harbour of Passages was the only port near the scene of operations suited for the supply of the army. Yet it had this defect, that being situated between the covering and the besieging army, the stores and guns once landed were in danger from every movement of the enemy. The Deba river, between San Sebastian and Bilbaō, was unfit for large vessels, and hence no permanent depôt could be established nearer than Bilbaō. At that port therefore, and at St. Ander and Coruña, the great depôts of the army were fixed, the stores being transported to them from the establishments in Portugal; but the French held Santona, and their privateers interrupted the communication along the coast of Spain while American privateers did the same between Lisbon and Coruña. On the other hand the intercourse between San Sebastian and the ports of France was scarcely molested, and the most urgent remonstrances failed to procure a sufficient naval force on the coast of Biscay. It was in these circumstances Wellington commenced
THE SIEGE OF SAN SEBASTIAN.
This place was built on a low sandy isthmus formed by the harbour on one side and the river Urumea on the other. Behind it rose the Monte Orgullo, a rugged cone nearly four hundred feet high, washed by the ocean and crowned with the small castle of La Mota. Its southern face overlooking the town, was yet cut off from it by a line of defensive works and covered with batteries; but La Mota itself was commanded, at a distance of thirteen hundred yards, by the Monte Olia on the other side of the Urumea.
The land front of San Sebastian was three hundred and fifty yards wide, stretching quite across the isthmus. It consisted of a high curtain or rampart, very solid, strengthened by a lofty casemated flat bastion or cavalier placed in the centre, and by half bastions at either end. A regular horn-work was pushed out from this front, and six hundred yards beyond the horn-work the isthmus was closed by the ridge of San Bartolomeo, at the foot of which stood the suburb of San Martin.
On the opposite side of the Urumea were certain sandy hills called the Chofres, through which the road from Passages passed to the wooden bridge over the river, and thence, by the suburb of Santa Catalina, along the top of a sea-wall which formed a fausse braye for the horn-work.
The flanks of the town were protected by simple ramparts. The one was washed by the water of the harbour, the other by the Urumea which at high tide covered four of the twenty-seven feet comprised in its elevation. This was the weak side of the fortress, for though covered by the river there was only a single wall ill-flanked by two old towers, and by the half bastion of San Elmo which was situated at the extremity of the rampart close under the Monte Orgullo. There was no ditch, no counter-scarp, or glacis, the wall could be seen to its base from the Chofre hills at distances varying from five hundred to a thousand yards, and when the tide was out the Urumea left a dry strand under the rampart as far as St. Elmo. However the guns from the batteries at Monte Orgullo especially that called the Mirador, could see this strand.
The other flank of the town was secured by the harbour, in the mouth of which was a rocky island, called Santa Clara, where the French had established a post of twenty-five men.
When the battle of Vittoria happened San Sebastian was nearly dismantled; many of the guns had been removed to form battering trains or to arm smaller ports on the coast, there were no bomb-proofs nor pallisades nor outworks, the wells were foul and the place was supplied with water by a single aqueduct. Joseph’s defeat restored its importance as a fortress. General Emanuel Rey entered it the 22d of June, bringing with him the escort of the convoy which had quitted Vittoria the day before the battle. The town was thus filled with emigrant Spanish families, with the ministers and other persons attached to the court; the population ordinarily eight thousand was increased to sixteen thousand and disorder and confusion were predominant. Rey, pushed by necessity, immediately forced allBellas’ Journal of French Sieges in Spain. persons not residents to march at once to France granting them only a guard of one hundred men; the people of quality went by sea, the others by land, and fortunately all arrived safely for the Partidas would have given them no quarter.
On the 27th general Foy while retreating before sir Thomas Graham threw a reinforcement into the place. The next day Mendizabal’s Spaniards appeared on the hills behind the ridge of San Bartolomeo and on the Chofres, whereupon general Rey burned the wooden bridge and both the suburbs, and commenced fortifying the heights of San Bartolomeo. The 29th the Spaniards slightly attacked San Bartolomeo, and were repulsed.
The 1st of July the governor of Gueteria abandonedJuly. that place, and with detestable ferocity secretlySir G. Collier’s Despatch. left a lighted train which exploded the magazine and destroyed many of the inhabitants. His troops three hundred in number entered San Sebastian, and at the same time a vessel from St. Jean de Luz arrived with fifty-six cannoneers and some workmen; the garrison was thus increased to three thousand men and all persons not able to provide subsistence for themselves in advance were ordered to quit the place. Meanwhile Mendizabal, having cut off the aqueduct, made some approaches towards the head of the burned bridge on the right of the Urumea and molested the workmen on the heights of Bartolomeo.
On the 3d, the Surveillante frigate and a sloop with some small craft arrived to blockade the harbour, yet the French vessels from St. Jean de Luz continued to enter by night. The same day the governor made a sally with eleven hundred men in three columns to obtain news, and after some hours’ skirmishing returned with a few prisoners.
The 6th some French vessels with a detachment of troops and a considerable convoy of provisions came from St. Jean de Luz.
The 7th Mendizabal tried, unsuccessfully, to set fire to the convent of San Bartolomeo.
On the 9th sir Thomas Graham arrived with a corps of British and Portuguese troops, and on the 13th the Spaniards marched, some to reinforce the force blockading Santona, the remainder to rejoin the fourth army on the Bidassoa.
At this time general Reille held the entrances to the Bastan by Vera and Echallar, but Wellington drove him thence on the 15th and established the seventh and light divisions there, thus covering the passes over the Peña de Haya by which the siege might have been interrupted.
Before general Graham arrived the French had constructed a redoubt on the heights of San Bartolomeo, and connected it with the convent of that name which they also fortified. These outworks were supported by posts in the ruined houses of the suburb of San Martin behind, and by a low circular redoubt, formed of casks on the main road, half-way between the convent and the horn-work. Hence to reduce the place, working along the isthmus, it was necessary to carry in succession three lines of defence covering the town, and a fourth at the foot of Monte Orgullo, before the castle of La Mota could be assailed. Seventy-six pieces of artillery were mounted upon these works and others were afterwards obtained from France by sea.
The besieging army consisted of the fifth division under general Oswald, and the independent Portuguese brigades of J. Wilson and Bradford reinforced by detachments from the first division. Thus, including the artillery-men some seamen commanded by lieutenant O’Reilly of the Surveillante and one hundred regular sappers and miners, now for the first time used in the sieges of the Peninsula, nearly ten thousand men were employed. The guns available for the attack, in the first instance, were a new battering train originally prepared for the siege of Burgos, consisting of fourteen iron twenty-fourJones’s Journal of British Sieges. pounders, six eight-inch brass howitzers, four sixty-eight-pound iron carronades, and four iron ten-inch mortars. To these were added six twenty-four pounders lent by the ships of war, and six eighteen pounders which had moved with the army from Portugal, making altogether forty pieces commanded by colonel Dickson. The distance from the depôt of siege at Passages to the Chofre sand-hills was one mile and a half of good road, and a pontoon bridge was laid over the Urumea river above the Chofres, but from thence to the height of Bartolomeo was more than five miles of very bad road.
Early in July the fortress had been twice closely examined by Major Smith, the engineer who had so ably defended Tarifa. He proposed a plan of siege founded upon the facility furnished by the Chofre hills to destroy the flanks, rake the principal front and form a breach with the same batteries, the works being at the same time secured, except at low water, by the Urumea. Counter-batteries, to be constructed on the left of that river, were to rake the line of defence in which the breach was to be formed; and against the castle and its outworks he relied principally upon vertical fire, instancing the reduction of Fort Bourbon in the West Indies in proof of its efficacy. This plan would probably have reduced San Sebastian in a reasonable time without any remarkable loss of men, and lord Wellington approving of it, though he doubted the efficacy of the vertical fire, ordered the siege to be commenced. He renewed his approval afterwards when he had examined the works in person, and all his orders were in the same spirit; but neither the plan nor his orders were followed, the siege, which should have been an ordinary event of war has obtained a mournful celebrity, and lord Wellington has been unjustly charged with a contempt for the maxims of the great masters of the art. Anxious he was no doubt to save time, yet he did not for that urge the engineer beyond the rules. Take the place in the quickest manner, yet do not from over speed fail to take it, was the sense of his instructions; but sir Thomas Graham, one of England’s best soldiers, appears to have been endowed with a genius for war intuitive rather than reflective; and this joined to his natural modesty and a certain easiness of temper, caused him at times to abandon his own correct conceptions, for the less judicious counsels of those about him who advised deviations from the original plan.
Active operations were commenced on the night of the 10th by the construction of two batteries against the convent and redoubt of San Bartolomeo. And on the night of the 13th four batteries to contain twenty of the heaviest guns and four eight-inch howitzers, were marked out on the Chofre sand-hills, at distances varying from six hundred to thirteen hundred yards from the eastern rampart of the town. The river was supposed to be unfordable, wherefore no parallel of support was made, yet good trenches of communications, and subsequently regular approaches were formed. Two attacks were thus established. One on the right bank of the Urumea entrusted to the unattached Portuguese brigades; one on the left bank to the fifth division; but most of the troops were at first encamped on the right bank to facilitate a junction with the covering army in the event of a general battle.
On the 14th a French sloop entered the harbour with supplies, and the batteries of the left attack, under the direction of the German major Hartman, opened against San Bartolomeo, throwing hot shot into that building. The besieged responded with musquetry from the redoubt, with heavy guns from the town, and with a field-piece which they had mounted on the belfry of the convent itself.
The 15th of July sir Richard Fletcher took the chief command of the engineers, but major Smith retained the direction of the attack from the Chofre Hills and lord Wellington’s orders continued to pass through his hands. This day the batteries of the left attack, aided by some howitzers from the right of the Urumea, set the convent on fire, silenced the musquetry of the besieged, and so damaged the defences that the Portuguese troops attached to the fifth division were ordered to feel the enemy’s post. They were however repulsed with great loss, the French sallied, and the firing did not cease until nightfall.
A battery for seven additional guns to play against Bartolomeo was now commenced on the right of the Urumea, and the original batteries set fire to the convent several times, but the flames were extinguished by the garrison.
In the night of the 16th general Rey sounded the Urumea as high as Santa Catalina, designing to pass over and storm the batteries on the Chofres; but the fords discovered were shifting, and the difficulty of execution deterred him from this project.
The 17th, the convent being nearly in ruins, the assault was ordered without waiting for the effect of the new battery raised on the other side of the Urumea. The storming party was formed in two columns. Detachments from Wilson’s Portuguese, supported by the light company of the ninth British regiment and three companies of the royals, composed the right, which under the direction of general Hay was destined to assail the redoubt. General Bradford directed the left which being composed of Portuguese, supported by three companies of the ninth British regiment under colonel Cameron, was ordered to assail the convent.
ASSAULT OF SAN BARTOLOMEO.
At ten o’clock in the morning two heavy six-pounders opened against the redoubt; and a sharp fire of musquetry in return from the French, who had been reinforced and occupied the suburb of San Martin, announced their resolution to fight. The allied troops were assembled behind the crest of the hill overlooking the convent, and the first signal was given, but the Portuguese advanced slowly at both attacks, and the supporting companies of the ninth regiment on each side, passing through them fell upon the enemy with the usual impetuosity of British soldiers. Colonel Cameron while leading his grenadiers down the face of the hill was exposed to a heavy cannonade from the horn-work, but he soon gained the cover of a wall fifty yards from the convent and there awaited the second signal. However his rapid advance, which threatened to cut off the garrison from the suburb, joined to the fire of the two six-pounders and that of some other field-pieces on the farther side of the Urumea, caused the French to abandon the redoubt. Seeing this, Cameron jumped over the wall and assaulted both the convent and the houses of the suburb. At the latter a fierce struggle ensued and captain Woodman of the ninth was killed in the upper room of a house after fighting his way up from below; but the grenadiers carried the convent with such rapidity that the French, unable to explode some small mines they had prepared, hastily joined the troops in the suburb. There however the fighting continued and colonel Cameron’s force being very much reduced the affair was becoming doubtful, when the remaining companies of his regiment, which he had sent for after the attack commenced, arrived, and the suburb was with much fighting entirely won. At the right attack the company of the ninth, although retarded by a ravine by a thick hedge by the slowness of the Portuguese and by a heavy fire, entered the abandoned redoubt with little loss, but the troops were then rashly led against the cask redoubt, contrary to general Oswald’s orders, and were beaten back by the enemy.
The loss of the French was two hundred andBellas Journaux des Sièges. forty men, that of the allies considerable; the companies of the ninth under colonel Cameron, alone, had seven officers and sixty men killed or wounded, and the operation although successful was an error. The battery erected on the right bank of the Urumea was not opened, wherefore, either the assault was precipitated or the battery not necessary; but the loss justified the conception of the battery.
When the action ceased the engineers made a lodgement in the redoubt, and commenced two batteries for eight pieces to rake the horn-work and the eastern rampart of the place. Two other batteries to contain four sixty-eight-pound carronades and four ten-inch mortars were also commenced on the right bank of the Urumea.
The 18th the besieged threw up traverses on the land front to meet the raking fire of the besiegers, and the latter dragged four pieces up the Monte Olia to plunge into the Mirador and other batteries on the Monte Orgullo. In the night a lodgement was made on the ruins of San Martin, the two batteries at the right attack were armed, and two additional mortars dragged up the Monte Olia.
The 19th all the batteries at both attacks were armed, and in the night two approaches being commenced from the suburb of San Martin towards the cask redoubt the French were driven from that small work.
On the 20th the whole of the batteries opened their fire, the greatest part being directed to form the breach.
Major Smith’s plan was similar to that followed by marshal Berwick a century before. He proposed a lodgement on the horn-work before the breach should be assailed, but he had not then read theNotes of the Siege by sir C. Smith, MSS. description of that siege and therefore unknowingly fixed the breaching-point precisely where the wall had been most strongly rebuilt after Berwick’s attack. This was the first fault, yet a slight one because the wall did not resist the batteries very long, but it was a serious matter that sir Thomas Graham at the suggestion of the commander of the artillery began his operations by breaching. Major Smith objected to it, and sir R. Fletcher acquiesced reluctantly on the understanding that the ruining of the defences was only postponed, an understanding afterwards unhappily forgotten.
The result of the first day’s attack was not satisfactory, the weather proved bad, the guns mounted on ship carriages failed, one twenty-four pounder was rendered unserviceable by the enemy, another became useless from an accident, a captain of engineers was killed, and the besiegers’ shot had little effect upon the solid wall. In the night however the ship-guns were mounted on better carriages, and a parallel across the isthmus was projected; but the greatest part of the workmen, to avoid a tempest, sought shelter in the suburb of San Martin and when day broke only one-third of the work was performed.
The 21st the besiegers’ batteries ceased firing to allow of a summons, but the governor refused to receive the letter and the firing was resumed. The main wall still resisted yet the parapets and embrazures crumbled away fast, and the batteries on Monte Olia plunged into the horn-work, although at sixteen hundred yards distance, with such effect, that the besieged having no bomb-proofs were forced to dig trenches to protect themselves. The counter-fire directed solely against the breaching batteries was feeble, but at midnight a shell thrown from the castle into the bay gave the signal for a sally, and during the firing which ensued several French vessels with supplies entered the harbour. This night also the besieged isolated the breach by cuts in the rampart and other defences. On the other hand the besiegers’ parallel across the isthmus was completed, and in its progress laid bare the mouth of a drain, four feet high and three feet wide, containing the pipe of the aqueduct cut off by the Spaniards. Through this dangerous opening lieutenant Reid of the engineers, a young and zealous officer, crept even to the counterscarp of the horn-work, and finding the passage there closed by a door returned without an accident. Thirty barrels of powder were placed in this drain, and eight feet was stopped with sand-bags, thus forming a globe of compression designed to blow, as through a tube, so much rubbish over the counterscarp as might fill the narrow ditch of the horn-work.
On the 22d the fire from the batteries, unexampled from its rapidity and accuracy, opened what appeared a practicable breach in the eastern flank wall, between the towers of Los Hornos and LasPlan 3. Mesquitas. The counter-fire of the besieged now slackened, but the descent into the town behind the breach was more than twelve feet perpendicular, and the garrison were seen from Monte Olia diligently working at the interior defences to receive the assault: they added also another gun to the battery of St. Elmo, just under the Mirador battery, to flank the front attack. On the other hand the besiegers had placed four sixty-eight pound carronades in battery to play on the defences of the breach, but the fire on both sides slackened because the guns were greatly enlarged at the vents with constant practice.
On the 23d the sea blockade being null the French vessels returned to France with the badly wounded men. This day the besiegers judging the breach between the towers quite practicable turned the guns, at the suggestion of general Oswald, to break the wall on the right of the main breach. Major Smith opposed this, urging, that no advantage would be gained by making a second opening to get at which the troops must first pass the great breach; that time would be thus uselessly lost to the besiegers, and that there was a manifest objection on account of the tide and depth of water at the new point attacked. His counsel was overruled, and in the course of the day, the wall being thin the stroke heavy and quick, a second breach thirty feet wide was rendered practicable.
The defensive fire of the besieged being now much diminished, the ten-inch mortars and sixty-eight pound carronades were turned upon the defences of the great breach, and upon a stockade which separated the high curtain on the land front, from the lower works of the flank against which the attack was conducted. The houses near the breach were soon in flames which spread rapidly, destroyed some of the defences of the besieged and menacing the whole town with destruction. The assault was ordered for the next morning. But when the troops assembled in the trenches the burning houses appeared so formidable that the attack was deferred and the batteries again opened, partly against the second breach, partly against the defences, partly to break the wall in a third place between the half bastion of St. John on the land front and the main breach.
During the night the vigilant governor expecting the assault mounted two field-pieces on the cavalier, in the centre of the land front, which being fifteen feet above the other defences commanded the high curtain, and they still had on the horn-work a light piece, and two casemated guns on the flank of the cavalier. Two other field-pieces were mounted on an entrenchment which crossing the ditch of the land front bore on the approaches to the main breach; a twenty-four pounder looked from the tower of Las Mesquitas, between the main breach and where the third opening was being made and consequently flanking both; two four-pounders were in the tower of Hornos; two heavy guns were on the flank of St. Elmo, and two others, placed on theBellas, &c. right of the Mirador, could play upon the breaches from within the fortified line of Monte Orgullo. Thus fourteen pieces were still available for defence, the retaining sea-wall or fausse braye which strengthened the flank of the horn-work, and between which and the river the storming parties must necessarily advance, was covered with live shells to roll over on the columns, and behind the flaming houses near the breach other edifices were loop-holed and filled with musqueteers. However the fire extending rapidly and fiercely greatly injured the defences, the French to save their guns withdrew them until the moment of attack, and the British artillery officers were confident that in daylight they could silence the enemy’s guns and keep the parapet clear of men; wherefore sir Thomas Graham renewed the order for
THE ASSAULT.
In the night of the 24th two thousand men of the fifth division filed into the trenches on the isthmus. This force was composed of the third battalion of the royals under major Frazer, destined to storm the great breach; the thirty-eighth regiment under colonel Greville, designed to assail the lesser and most distant breach; the ninth regiment under colonel Cameron, appointed to support the royals; finally a detachment, selected from the light companies of all those battalions, was placed in the centre of the royals under the command of lieutenant Campbell of the ninth regiment. This chosen detachment, accompanied by the engineer Machel with a ladder party, was intended to sweep the high curtain after the breach should be won.
The distance from the trenches to the points of attack was more than three hundred yards along the contracted space lying between the retaining wall of the horn-work and the river; the ground was strewed with rocks covered by slippery sea-weeds; the tide had left large and deep pools of water; the parapet of the horn-work was entire as well as the retaining wall; the parapets of the other works and the two towers, which closely flanked the breach, although injured were far from being ruined, and every place was thickly garnished with musqueteers. The difficulties of the attack were obvious, and a detachment of Portuguese placed in a trench opened beyond the parallel on the isthmus, within sixty yards of the ramparts, was ordered to quell if possible the fire of the horn-work.
While it was still dark the storming columns moved out of the trenches, and the globe of compression in the drain was exploded with great effect against the counterscarp and glacis of the horn-work. The garrison astonished by the unlooked-for event abandoned the flanking parapet, and the troops rushed onwards, the stormers for the main breach leading and suffering more from the fire of their own batteries on the right of the Urumea than from the enemy. Major Frazer and the engineer Harry Jones first reached the breach. The enemy had fallen back in confusion behind the ruins of the still burning houses, and those brave officers rushed up expecting that their troops would follow, but not many followed, for it was extremely dark, the natural difficulties of the way had contracted the front and disordered the column in its whole length, and the soldiers, straggling and out of wind, arrived in small disconnected parties at the foot of the breach. The foremost gathered near their gallant leaders, but the depth of the descent into the town and the volumes of flames and smoke which still issued from the burning houses behind awed the stoutest; and more than two-thirds of the storming column, irritated by the destructive flank fire, had broken off at the demi-bastion to commence a musquetry battle with the enemy on the rampart. Meanwhile the shells from the Monte Orgullo fell rapidly, the defenders of the breach rallied and with a smashing musquetry from the ruins and loopholed houses smote the head of the column, while the men in the towers smote them on the flanks; and from every quarter came showers of grape and hand-grenades tearing the ranks in a dreadful manner.
Major Frazer was killed on the flaming ruins, the intrepid Jones stood there awhile longer amidst a few heroic soldiers, hoping for aid, but none came and he and those with him were struck down. The engineer Machel had been killed early and the men bearing ladders fell or were dispersed. Thus the rear of the column was in absolute confusion before the head was beaten. It was in vain that colonel Greville of the thirty-eighth, colonel Cameron of the ninth, captain Archimbeau of the royals, and many other regimental officers exerted themselves to rally their discomfited troops and refill the breach; it was in vain that lieutenant Campbell, breaking through the tumultuous crowd with the survivors of his chosen detachment, mounted the ruins; twice he ascended, twice he was wounded, and all around him died. The royals endeavouring to retire got intermixed with the thirty-eighth, and with some companies of the ninth which had unsuccessfully endeavoured to pass them and get to the lesser breach. Then swayed by different impulses and pent up in the narrow way between the horn-work and the river, the mass reeling to and fro could neither advance nor go back until the shells and musquetry, constantly plied both in front and flank, had thinned the concourse and the trenches were regained in confusion. At daylight a truce was agreed to for an hour, during which the French, who had already humanely removed the gallant Jones and the other wounded men from the breach, now carried off the more distant sufferers lest they should be drowned by the rising of the tide.
Five officers of engineers including sir Richard Fletcher, and forty-four officers of the line with five hundred and twenty men, had been killed, wounded, or made prisoners in this assault the failure of which was signal, yet the causes were obvious and may be classed thus.
1º. Deviation from the original project of siege and from lord Wellington’s instructions.
2º. Bad arrangements of detail.
3º. Want of vigour in the execution.
In respect of the first, lord Wellington having visited the Chofre trenches on the 22d confirmed his former approval of Smith’s plan, and gave that officer final directions for the attack finishing thus, “Fair daylight must be taken for the assault.” These instructions and their emphatic termination were repeated by major Smith in the proper quarter, but they were not followed, no lodgement was made on the horn-work, the defences were nearly entire both in front and flank, and the assault was made in darkness. Major Smith had also, by calculation and by consultations with the fishermen, ascertained that the ebb of tide would serve exactly at day-break on the 24th; but the assault was made the 25th, and then before daylight, when the water being too high contracted the ground, increased the obstacles, and forced the assaulting column to march on a narrow front and a long line, making an uneasy progress and trickling onwards instead of dashing with a broad surge against the breach. In fine the rules of art being neglected and no extraordinary resource substituted the operation failed.
The troops filed out of the long narrow trenches in the night, a tedious operation, and were immediatelyNotes on the siege, by sir C. Smith, MSS. exposed to a fire of grape from their own batteries on the Chofres. This fire, intended to keep down that of the enemy, should have ceased when the globe of compression was sprung in the drain, but owing to the darkness and the noise the explosion could neither be seen nor heard. The effect of it however drove the enemy from the horn-work, the Portuguese on that side advanced to the ditch, and a vigorous escalade would probably have succeeded but they had no ladders. Again the stormers of the great breach marched first, filling up the way and rendering the second breach, as major Smith had foretold, useless, and the ladder-bearers never got to their destination. The attack was certainly ill-digested, and there was a neglect of moral influence followed by its natural consequence want of vigour in execution.
The deferring of the assault from the 24th to the 25th expressly because the breach was too difficult rendered the troops uneasy, they suspected some hidden danger, and in this mood emerging from the trenches they were struck by the fire of their own batteries; then wading through deep pools of water, or staggering in the dark over slippery rocks, and close under the enemy’s flanking works whence every shot told with fatal effect, how could they manifest their natural conquering energy? It is possible that a second and more vigorous assault on the great breach might have been effected by a recognized leader, but no general or staff officer went out of the trenches with the troops, and the isolated exertions of the regimental officers were unavailing. Nor were there wanting other sinister influences. General Oswald had in the councils earnestly and justly urged the dangers arising from the irregular mode of attack, but this anticipation of ill success, in which other officers of rank joined, was freely expressed out of council, and it said even in the hearing of the troops abating that daring confidence which victory loves.
Lord Wellington repaired immediately to St. Sebastian. The causes of the failure were apparent and he would have renewed the attack, but wanting ammunition, deferred it until the powder and additional ordnance which he had written for to England as early as the 26th of June should arrive. The next day other events caused him to resort to a blockade and the battering train was transported to Passages, two guns and two howitzers only being retained on the Chofres and the Monte Olia. This operation was completed in the night of the 26th, but at day-break the garrison made a sally from the horn-work, surprised the trenches and swept off two hundred Portuguese and thirty British soldiers. To avoid a repetition of this disaster the guards of the trenches were concentrated in the left parallel, and patroles only were sent out, yet one of those also was cut off on the 1st of August. Thus terminated the first part of the siege of San Sebastian in which the allies lost thirteen hundred soldiers and seamen, exclusive of Spaniards during Mendizabal’s blockade.