[889] The statement in Napier and succeeding writers that the wounded of the right wing of the 92nd formed a bank behind which the French advance halted, and stood to receive the fire of the left wing of that same corps, whose bullets hit many of its comrades, comes from the narrative of Norton of the 34th (Napier, V. appendix, p. 442), who was some way off. That the troops which came up were the right wing 71st, and not the left wing 92nd, seems to me proved by the narrative of Hope of the 92nd, who distinctly says that the right wing were relieved by the 71st, and that the left wing were still holding the Maya position and under Stewart, who had just arrived, along with the left wing of the 71st (Military Memoirs, p. 210).
[890] He himself in his dispatch only says that it was after 1 p.m.
[891] Tulloh (commanding 2nd division batteries) to Dickson, in Dickson Papers, p. 1022. Wellington’s censure of Stewart may be found in Dispatches, x. p. 588, and his reply to the latter’s self-defence in xi. p. 107. The details are hard to follow: Wellington says that Pringle ordered the guns to be taken off by the road to Maya—that Stewart directed that they were to go back, and look to ‘the mountain road to Elizondo’ as their proper line of retreat. When it became necessary for them to retire at all costs, that road was already in the hands of the French. But I do not know precisely what Wellington meant by the mountain-road to Elizondo. Does it mean the track by which the 28th and 34th had retired?
[892] See Stewart’s Report to Hill, Berueta, July 26.
[893] Robertson, pp. 109-10.
[894] Stewart’s dispatch says that it was the 82nd who fought with stones.
[895] This was not the brigade to which the 82nd belonged, but the reserve brigade of the 7th Division, short of one of its units, the 3rd Provisional.
[896] Cf. Dispatches, x. pp. 597-8.
[897] ‘Lettres de l’Empereur Napoléon non insérées dans la Correspondance, publiées par X. Paris and Nancy, 1909,’ page 3. It is amusing to find out what Napoleon III omitted of his uncle’s letters.
[898] ‘Lettres de l’Empereur Napoléon non insérées dans la Correspondance,’ p. 13.