‘Good wine, old friends, or being dry,
Or that he may be by and by,
Or any other reason why.’
I am sorry to admit that I was carried away with the torrent of sensuality which at this time set in with a kind of powerful flood-tide. Every good impression was well-nigh obliterated from my mind. The nice mental perception of right and wrong which I retained as a valued relic, resulting from my mother’s advices, was nearly blunted; and my subsequent experience has shown me that when once the barrier between vice and virtue is weakened, or is dimly visible, great danger is at hand. Among other habits unhappily contracted was that of profane swearing; which, connected with singing licentious ballads and free living, completed the depravity of my conduct. And yet I was more proud of my religion than ever; and had any one called in question the infallibility of the Pope, I should have instantly challenged him to fight for the insolence of the thing.
It has been observed by an acute military writer, that the talents of Lord Wellington rose with his difficulties; and notwithstanding the serious impediments which obstructed the measure, he resolved to subdue the important fortress of Badajos. He accordingly proceeded to Elvas, which he reached on the 11th of March, and arrangements were immediately commenced for the formal investment of the place. Badajos is a regularly fortified town. The garrison, composed of French, Hessian, and Spanish troops, was now near five thousand strong. Phillipon, the governor, had greatly improved the defences of the place. A second ditch had been dug at the bottom of the great one, which was also in some parts filled with water. The gorge of the Pardaleras was inclosed, and that outwork was connected with the body of the place, from whence powerful batteries looked into it. The three western fronts were mined; and on the east, the arch of the bridge behind the San Roque was built up to form an inundation two hundred yards wide, which greatly contracted the space by which the place could be approached by troops; and all the inhabitants had been compelled, on pain of being sent away, to lay up food for three months.
The plan fixed upon by the besiegers was, to attack the bastion of Trinidad, because the counter-guard there being unfinished the bastion could be battered from the hill on which Picurina stood. Of nine hundred gunners present, three hundred were British, the rest Portuguese; and there were one hundred and fifty sappers, volunteers from the third division. In the night of the 17th eighteen hundred men broke ground one hundred and sixty yards from the Picurina. A tempest, which happened to arise, stifled the sound of their pickaxes; and though the work was commenced late, a communication four thousand feet in length was formed, and a parallel of six hundred yards, three feet deep and three feet six inches wide, was opened. However, when the day broke, the Picurina was reinforced; and a sharp musketry, interspersed with discharges from some field-pieces, aided by heavy guns from the body of the place, was directed on the trenches. On the 19th Lord Wellington, having secret intelligence that a sally was intended, ordered the guards to be reinforced. Nevertheless, at one o’clock, some cavalry came out by the Talavera gate; and thirteen hundred infantry, under the command of General Vielland, filed unobserved into the communication between the Picurina and the San Roque. These troops jumping out, at once drove the workmen before them, and began to demolish the parallel. Previous to this outbreak the French cavalry, forming two parties, had commenced a sham-fight on the right of the parallel; and the smaller party pretending to fly, and answering Portuguese to the challenge of the piquets, were allowed to pass. Elated by the success of their stratagem, they then galloped to the engineer’s park, which was a thousand yards in the rear of the trenches, and there cut down some men—not many, for succour soon came; and meanwhile the troops at the parallel having rallied upon the relief which had just arrived, beat the enemy’s infantry back, even into the castle. In this hot fight the besieged lost above three hundred men and officers, the besiegers only one hundred and fifty; but Colonel Fletcher, the chief engineer, was badly wounded and several hundred trenching-tools were carried off,—for Phillipon had promised a high price for each. Yet this turned out ill; for the soldiers, instead of pursuing briskly, dispersed to gather the tools. After the action, a squadron of dragoons and six field-pieces were placed as a reserve-guard behind St. Michael, and a signal-post was established on the Sierra de Venta to give notice of the enemy’s motions.
On the 24th, the fifth division invested the place, on the right bank of the Guadiana; the weather was fine, and the batteries were heavily armed. The next day at eleven o’clock, the pieces opened, but were so vigorously opposed, that one howitzer was dismounted and several artillery and engineer officers were killed. Nevertheless, the San Roque was silenced; and the garrison of the Picurina was so galled by the marksmen in the trenches, that no man dared look over the parapet. Hence, as the external appearance of the fort did not indicate much strength, General Kempt was charged to assault it in the night. The outward seeming of the Picurina was, however, fallacious; the fort was very strong; the fronts were well covered by the glacis, the flanks were deep, and the rampart, fourteen feet perpendicular from the bottom of the ditch, was guarded with thick slanting pales above; and from thence to the top there were sixteen feet of an earthen slope. Seven guns were mounted on the works, the entrance to which, by the rear, was protected with three rows of thick paling; the garrison was above two hundred strong, and every man had two muskets. The top of the rampart was furnished with loaded shells, to push over; and finally some small mines and a loop-holed gallery under the counterscarp intended to take the assailants in rear were begun, but not finished. Five hundred men of the third division being assembled for the attack, General Kempt ordered two hundred, under Major Rudd, to turn the fort on the left; an equal force, under Major Shaw, to turn the fort by the right; and one hundred from each of these bodies were directed to enter the communication with San Roque, and intercept any succours coming from the town. The engineers, with twenty-four sappers bearing hatchets and ladders, guided these columns; and fifty men of the light division, provided also with axes, were to move out of the trenches at the moment of attack.
The night was fine, the arrangements clearly and skilfully made, and about nine o’clock the two flanking bodies moved forward. The distance was short, and the troops quickly closed on the fort, which, black and silent before, now seemed one mass of fire; then the assailants, running up to the palisades in the rear, endeavoured to break through; and when the destructive musketry of the French and the thickness of the pales rendered their efforts useless, they turned against the faces of the work, and strove to break in there; but the depth of the ditch, and the slanting stakes at the top of the brick-work, baffled them.
At this time, the enemy firing incessantly and dangerously, the crisis appeared imminent; and Kempt sent the reserve headlong against the front; thus the fight was continued strongly; the carnage became terrible, and a battalion coming out from the town to succour the fort, was encountered and beaten by the party on the communication. The guns of Badajos and of the castle now opened; the guard of the trenches replied with musketry, rockets were thrown up by the besieged, and the shrill sound of alarm-bells, mixing with the shouts of the combatants, increased the tumult. Still the Picurina sent out streams of fire, by the light of which dark figures were seen furiously struggling on the ramparts; for Powis first escaladed the place in front, where the artillery had beaten down the pales; and the other assailants had thrown their ladders on the flanks, in the manner of bridges, from the brink of the ditch to the slanting stakes; and all were fighting hand to hand with the enemy. Meanwhile the axe-men of the light division, compassing the fort like prowling wolves, discovered the gate, and hewing it down broke in by the rear. Yet the struggle continued; Powis, Holloway, Gips, and Oats, of the 88th, fell wounded in or beyond the rampart. Nixon, of the 52nd, was shot, two yards within the gate; Shaw, Rudd, and nearly all the other officers had fallen outside; and it was not until nearly half the garrison were killed, that Gasper Thiery, the commandant, and eighty-six men surrendered, while a few rushing out of the gate endeavoured to cross the bridge and were drowned. This intrepid assault, which lasted an hour, cost four officers and fifty men killed, fifteen officers and two hundred and fifty men wounded; and so vehement was the fight throughout that the garrison either forgot or had not time to roll over the shells and combustibles arranged on the rampart.
On the 3rd of April it was evident that the crisis of the siege drew nigh. The British guns being all turned against the curtain, the masonry crumbled rapidly away; in two hours a yawning breach appeared, and Lord Wellington, having examined the points of attack in person, gave the order for assault. The soldiers then made themselves ready for the approaching combat, one of the most fierce and terrible ever exhibited in the annals of war. Posterity will find it difficult to credit the tale, but many who are still alive know that it is true. The British General was so sensible of Phillipon’s firmness, and of the courage of his garrison, that he spared them the affront of a summons; yet, seeing the breach strongly entrenched, and the enemy’s flank fire still powerful, he would not in this dread crisis trust his fortune to a single effort. Eighteen thousand soldiers burned for the signal of attack, and as he was unwilling to lose the services of any, to each division he gave a task such as few generals would have the hardihood to contemplate. Nor was the enemy idle; for while it was yet twilight some French cavalry issued from the Pardaleras, escorting an officer, who endeavoured to look into the trenches, with a view to ascertain if an assault was intended: but the piquet on that side jumped up, and, firing as it ran, drove him and his escort back into the works. The darkness then fell, and the troops awaited the signal.