The bridge answered perfectly; it consisted of thirty-six two-masted vessels, with anchors across all the way at the head and stern of each; a strong beam across the centre of each, between the masts, to which the cables were fastened, to form the road, so that each formed a separate bridge, and the destruction of one cable only affected one space. The boards were then fixed on these cables, and were interlaced all the way by small cords, through notches in the boards; and thus we went safely along between the masts, in a road about twelve or fourteen feet wide, differing, however, from a common bridge, for the arches between the boats (from the stretching of the cables) formed concaves instead of convex arches, some of them descending nearly to the water’s edge. It answered, however, perfectly, and will continue to do so, unless the Spaniards suffer the Trench to come and destroy it. Of this I have my doubts. The crews were living in their vessels at the head and stern, cooking away and going on as usual. Five or six gun-boats were moored about it, then came the boom and boats ready to tow ashore any fireship.
At Boucaut we found Sir John Hope and his staff, so we were ordered to the next village on the road. Our managing Quarter-Master clumsily went to a bad village of a dozen houses, out of the road, when there was a very good one on the right road, only a few miles further on. Several of us had no houses, and were told we must find them for ourselves. After waiting for some time until my baggage came, I determined to go on the right road until I found a quarter vacant, trusting with full confidence to the good disposition of the inhabitants, which is most excellent towards the English. After looking into five, I found a vacant one a mile and a-half off, no officer within half a mile, and no English troops within two miles, and none at all towards the interior of France on that road. The people expected some one, and a bed was ready, and a hearty welcome I received.
In my way I went round by the picquet, within about eight hundred yards of Bayonne citadel, where my tailor was on fatigue-duty in the works, and I thus recovered my clothes. As I was just going to bed at eight o’clock, a violent cannonading and sharp musketry commenced sounding close by us. I did not think it prudent to go to bed until it ceased, for we were within about a mile and a-half of a garrison of eleven thousand men; but suspecting what was the case, that it was only our people driving the French out of a field-work on the hill, and hemming them in closer to the citadel, I was little alarmed.
My host and his family were great royalists in their professions, as they had for the last six months been more than usually oppressed by the French. He had a house and ten acres of land; the house probably worth about 10l. a-year in England. The rent of his land was one-half the produce of corn and maize; the taxes on his house had been already that year sixty francs, and his contributions fifteen bushels of maize and, I think, ten of corn. He said that no one could live if this continued, and that all the young men were carried off. He had one quarter to pay still, but expecting us every day, he put it off from time to time, though much threatened, and now thought himself safe.
From thence we started early for Peyrehorade, rather a large place, nearly as large as Kingston-upon-Thames. It was a market-day, and the people of the country crowded in as usual. They all stared at us, most saluted us; all were civil, and we got our quarters with much more facility, and met with ten times the civility we had ever done in Spain. I never witnessed a single quarrel, though the town was crowded as it is during an election with you, and we had only about twenty dragoons to protect all the twelve hundred animals and baggage of head-quarters.
My host was particularly civil, and gave me a very good apartment and an excellent dinner—some roast beef à l’Anglaise, a duck, and a fowl. The whole family dined with us, wife, mother, and two daughters. The eldest son, who had been intended for an attorney, had been taken as a conscript, and was wounded at Leipsic—since that time they had not heard of him. I comforted them by suggesting that he must have been left at Mayence. The next son was sixteen, and at school at St. Sever; next year it became his turn to take his chance as a conscript. You may well conceive that we were considered as welcome guests; independently of the expectation of having coffee and sugar cheap for grandmamma, and English linens, muslins, &c., for the two ugly misses.
On the 3rd of March we started again for Orthes, the scene of the famous battle, of which you will have heard before you receive this letter, and of which we received several imperfect accounts as we went along. The reception all along the road, and at Orthes, was the same as at Peyrehorade. Dr. M—— and Major G—— just stopped in the stable of a château for shelter, when the owner came out and took them in, and gave them cold turkey and champaign. At Orthes I got an excellent quarter at the house of the Juge de Paix, who was very hospitable as usual; and as the weather was so excessively bad, and my Portuguese almost dead with their walk of twenty miles in the rain and mud, I stopped the night there, notwithstanding the head-quarters were regularly eight miles further at Soult. I knew the latter was a miserable place, which was another inducement with me to remain.
At Orthes I found about two thousand wounded, one thousand English, and the others French and Portuguese; the latter had behaved well, as usual. I found the Adjutant-general, Pakenham, confined to his bed, ill at the inn, but, at nine at night, and this morning, very much better. The hospitals are all established, and in full activity. Lord March was shot in the chest, but the surgeon hoped he would do well, and thought so; he could not, however, find the ball, but had reason to think it had not passed the lungs. Colonel Brook’s brother (a schoolfellow of George’s) was shot through the lungs, and there is little hope of him.
The affair at Orthes was quite unexpected; as they had suffered our army to pass all the rivers, no one expected this desperate stand, for such I am told it was, the French having seldom fought better. They stood some time after they had ceased to fire, and it is therefore concluded that they had had no ammunition left; and even after our cavalry (who behaved well) was in the midst of them cutting away. At last they gave way, and then fled quickly. Their loss no one knows, as the wounded got off to the villages round; but all say that their army is actually reduced above eight thousand men, as the conscripts are all running home as fast as they can. Above twenty had come back to Peyrehorade; and one gentleman-like young man I met at my quarter there was a convalescent conscript, and such he said he should now always remain, unless affairs took another turn again.
Our state here is most curious; all riding about singly, entering any house we please, and well received everywhere, the baggage straggling all over the country; every one declaring that one man had caused all their misery for the last three years. The Bourbons are almost forgotten; and few, even of the better sort of people, know who the Duke d’Angoulême is. All want peace, and, therefore, wish him well. The French people are just now humbled to a most astonishing degree—I could scarcely have believed it possible.