The fox-hounds were out yesterday, and killed a fox; but had not a very good run. Lord Wellington wore the Salisbury hunt-coat, sky-blue and black cape. The Spanish General Frere accompanied him, and as formerly he was a general of cavalry, and the fox soon took to earth, I understand Frere kept up, but all his staff were distanced.
I feel now quite at ease about my animals, for I have collected straw and hay, and furze enough for about eight days, which is with us looking very forward, as much so as is prudent. My Spanish boy, after being here a day or two, told me he would rather set out and try to find his way to Madrid, so I dismissed him, lest he should take a horse or mule to expedite him on his journey.
We cannot prevent the Spanish boats from still getting down the Adour to Bayonne, though it is not quite so easy as it was to navigate the river. If all remains quiet, Lord Wellington talks of giving a ball here on the 18th of January, the Queen’s birthday, but nothing can be settled long beforehand. The English ladies will be few, and all married women. We have still only four of the legitimate kind. The mayor of the town says that a number of the ladies who frequented the balls before we came, and of whom I found a list in my quarter, are still here, and will be forthcoming if called upon.
I find my French “seat of war” a most useful acquisition, as it now contains the whole war, except our own, and that I have in the map of this department, which is on a superior scale.
From four to six o’clock our promenade on the wall is quite gay, for all the great men of business, including Lord Wellington himself, generally appear there at that time, and the Guards also, though the exertion of walking, to which we men of business are accustomed to take at a true twopenny postman’s long trot, is too great for them; yet they are formed about in knots and groups, sitting on the wall, or gently lounging on it, and add to the gaiety of the scene. We soon perceive when their turn of duty at the outposts takes them away to the front for a week.
As a proof of the supine and inactive state of the Spanish government, bread and corn are so cheap and abundant this year in the Castiles, that they are quite without demand, and it even answers to bring Spanish bread up here to sell, above fifty, and, I believe, a hundred miles; and yet the Spanish nation, relieved from the French army and our own, cannot supply the few men we have in front with us, in France and on the frontier, with money or anything. To prevent their plundering, we now not only have clothed Don Carlos’s soldiers, near Hasparren, but have given them a month’s pay, and provided them with rations of biscuits from England. With such a nation, and such a population, the state of the Spanish army, and the supplies, which get, I think, worse instead of better, is most provokingly disgraceful to their government and leading men.
I have been much struck with the change in the appearance of this town, when French head-quarters were here, and now that it has become the head-quarters of the English. It shows the difference between the two nations. When I was last there, all was gay and glittering, full of chattering officers in their best uniforms, with gold lace and ornaments, and prancing country steeds with housings and trappings of all kinds. The shops were crowded with sky-blue and scarlet caps embroidered with silver and gold, and pantaloons the same, smart cloaks, trinkets, &c. The road was covered with long cars, bringing in supplies drawn by mules gaily ornamented, and with bells, and waggoners with blue frocks, and long smacking whips, whilst the quay was nearly deserted, only a few boats to be seen which had just returned from an unsuccessful attempt to send in shot and shells to St. Sebastian; the sailors idle, and scarcely the appearance of a port visible. Bread and vegetables were abundant; other eatables, not so.
Now we have, on the contrary, a different scene; not a piece of finery is to be seen, no gay caps, no pantaloons, no ornaments. The officers all in their morning great coats; Lord Wellington in his plain blue coat, and round hat, or perhaps in his sky-blue Salisbury hunting dress. The streets, full of Spanish mules, with supplies, and muleteers, &c., all running against you, and splashing you as you walk; every shop crowded with eatables—wines, sauces, pickles, hams, tongues, butter, and sardines. The quay is now always a busy scene, covered with some rum casks, and flour casks, and suttler stores; the sailors all in our pay, at work constantly and making fortunes; the pilots in full hourly employment, bringing in vessels here or at Sacoa. The latter is full of masts and sails from Passages, Bilboa, Lisbon, or the West of England. The prices are still enormous, and of course, the activity is the result. The French peasants are always on the road between this place and Bayonne, bringing in poultry, and smuggling out sugar in sacks on their heads.
The Basques must have been a very happy race twenty years since, for though generally a poor country, there is plenty of their usual food—Indian corn, and excellent meadows by the rivers, which are numerous. Fish is easily procured—the houses are spacious and comfortable, and the children seem numerous, well-grown, intelligent, and healthy. The men are tall, straight, and active; the women, stout and useful, and rather good-looking. Nor was any great deficiency of young men observable; the proportions seemed much the same as in England, though certainly there are not so many tall idle fellows about as in Ireland. The town, however, had evident marks of a tendency to retrograde and decay.
Later, the 16th.—By the last French papers (which we now have to the 8th, and which bring us the good news from Genoa), I find the accounts of Bonaparte setting out to put himself at the head of a hundred and eighty thousand men near Dijon or Maçon, is at least premature, for he is still reviewing at Paris. We have stories of disturbances arising out of the conscription, but nothing certain seems known about them. The French, a few days since, surprised a few of our forage mules near Lahoupon; I believe only eight. Lahoupon is a place which neither party is fixed in, but both patrole through occasionally.