[260] Details in a dispatch to Colonel Austin of March 15, Dispatches, viii, p. 666. General scheme in a letter to Castaños of Feb. 16. Ibid., p. 614.
[261] ‘Something too like a panic was occasioned at the head of the 7th by the appearance of the few French dragoons and the galloping back of the staff and orderlies. A confused firing broke out down the column without object! Mem.—Even British troops should not be allowed to load before a night attack.’ D’Urban’s diary, March 26.
[262] For details of this forgotten campaign I rely mainly on D’Urban’s unpublished diary. As he knew Estremadura well, from having served there with Beresford in 1811, he was lent to Graham, and rode with his staff to advise about roads and the resources of the country.
[263] The letter may be found in King Joseph’s Correspondance, viii. pp. 345-6. See also Girod de l’Ain’s Vie militaire du Général Foy, pp. 368-9.
[264] This man is mentioned in Wellington’s Dispatches, viii. p. 609: ‘The Sergent-major des Sapeurs and Adjudant des travaux and the French miner may be sent in charge of a steady non-commissioned officer to Estremoz, there to wait till I send for them.’
[265] This renegade’s name must have been Bonin, or Bossin: I cannot read with certainty his extraordinary signature, with a paraphe, at the bottom of his map. The English engineers used it, and have roughly sketched in their own works of the third siege on top of the original coloured drawing.
[266] When he commanded the 1st Division of the 1st Corps under Vandamme, and was present when that corps was nearly all destroyed on Aug. 30, 1813, at Culm.
[267] Jones, Sieges of the Peninsula, i. p. 163.
[268] These swords were those of the large body of Spanish dismounted cavalry which had surrendered at the capitulation in March 1811.
[269] This fact, much insisted on by Jones, is disputed by certain Light Division witnesses, but does not seem to be disproved by them.