I hope the latter will support their name; and indeed they are disposed to do so, for we have put so much beef into both men and officers, that they are quite different animals, and will not submit at all to what they used to do, even from the English.
Our horses finished the half-eaten meal of the French, and I believe that has been all they have left behind for us hitherto; not a store of any kind, sick man, or anything else, has been discovered at Valladolid or anywhere; they must have been well-prepared for this plan.
The young avenues of trees round the town suffered a little by the French bivouac; and our men laid waste many a field of wheat in their march and for forage. The former is particularly wrong, being quite unnecessary, and merely to save perhaps a few hundred yards, or to get before others a little. I was glad to see General Picton stop a party, and about to punish them on the spot. The taking the wheat for forage is also very bad, for the commissaries regularly buy a field at each place, and allow us to take each our proportion, cutting the whole fairly and properly; whereas the fellows who go and steal, cut patches all about, and tread down more than they cut.
King Joseph left Torquemados, three leagues on the right, the day before yesterday, and it is said, peeped in again afterwards. The last French troops left it yesterday at five in the morning, and I believe General Hill’s head-quarters were there afterwards from Duennas. Castanos and his Spaniards are on our left all the way; they came by Benevente across the Esla and so towards Carrion. Their head-quarters were yesterday, I believe, at Villoldo, on our left. The Life-Guards and Blues looked well on their entrance into Palencia, and on their march yesterday the former, however, seem dull and out of spirits, and have some sore backs among their horses. The Blues seem much more up to the thing, but they are neither of them very fit for general service here. Lord Wellington saves them up for some grand coup, houses them when he can, and takes care of them. To be sure, if many of the French cavalry are like some specimens we have seen, particularly two deserters yesterday, who were on ponies I could almost jump over, one of our Householders must upset them like an elephant, if they come fairly in contact.
A French officer, a deserter (the third officer), came in two days since, with a pretty woman, daughter of a General, with him; he calls her his wife. Another starved scullion came here yesterday, and says he is an officer, and has some papers, but I think he stole them. He is a little dirty beast, in rags and without uniform. The cavalry who have been taken and deserters are quite new-clothed, and the men very fine; the last who has come in is a Fleming, and had they not persuaded him to enter our corps of guides, I should have taken him as a groom, and bought his pony.
Tamarra, a village a league from this, was deserted by the inhabitants, with their provisions; the French, in consequence, made an example of it, and it is as bad as the Portuguese villages now, almost a heap of ruins. Indeed, all the houses and villages on the high road to Torquemada have suffered terribly, and the villages generally are now becoming worse, more dirty, and à la Portuguese. I hear this is now the case all round Burgos, and till we get across the Ebro, if we are destined to do this. We are eleven leagues now from Burgos. The weather has been cool and excellent for the march this last week, and rain often in the night; it has now rained the last sixteen hours, and I hope will be fine again for the march to-morrow. I dined with Lord Wellington yesterday, for the first time on the march, and gave him your Roman Catholic book, with the lists of their schools and establishments in England. He looks well, but anxious, as you may suppose just now, for a false step may be fatal. All prospers hitherto. The eighteen-pounders are near, the twenty-fours still at Corunna, and if wanted will, I suppose, go round by sea to St. Andero. For the present, adieu.
June 11th, Head-Quarters, Castrogores.—The church at Amusea is large and handsome: a room 150 feet by 50, and 70 feet high, without a pillar, and the whole end one mass of gilding. Yesterday morning, after the violent rains of our halting day, we started at five on a fine day, the roads in a terrible state, for Mergan de Fernamental, head-quarters, on the 10th, five long leagues. Our way was near the noble canal, and through Pino (one league), a large village. From thence another league through Fromista, a larger place; then another league to Requena: then another to Lantidillo, where we crossed the Pisuerga over a large bridge, left entire; and then after another long league, Mergan de Fernamental.
The country was flat, and rich in corn, meadows, &c., nearly all the way, but low and boggy, and a hard march for men and baggage, &c.; mine started at five, and did not arrive till about two. There were villages thickly set all around us, and all with large churches. The latter, compared with ours, are very much superior, considering the size of the places: all possess a considerable church of rather curious construction, and all somewhat different, though in general appearance alike. The church at Mergan was particularly handsome, and more like our Saxon at Gloucester and Tewkesbury. It had some decent pictures, so indeed have several of the quarters, though perhaps not very valuable. Many are to be bought very cheap, and I should have purchased some, had I known how to carry them home.
At Mergan we were in the right road for Reynosa and St. Andero, and the first division were two leagues in advance the same way. I conjectured we were going to open a communication with St. Andero, and to cross the Ebro as soon as the French from Burgos, and thus turn them. There seems now, however, to be a change of plan, as to-day we are come three leagues here, nearly in the right road again for Burgos, which we had before left on our right. Here we have fallen in with General Hill’s division, who are now within half a league of this place. We are thus all now quite close together, and report says that the French have united their army of the north to the rest, and are now between this and Burgos eighty thousand strong, about four leagues distant.
They thus seem to make a stand here, and we are, probably, assembled in case they should persist, but many think it is still only a plan to make us assemble and draw up, to see what we have, and also to give time for their baggage and plunder, oxen, &c., to withdraw without loss: time will show. The sooner the battle comes for us the better, I think: and so do most, but it will be more tremendous, probably, than any hitherto fought in Spain. The numbers now approach those of the great continental armies on both sides, and we are at least equal, if you reckon all that are well dressed and ought to fight on our side; as to the Spaniards, hitherto we must put a query to that. Don Julian’s cavalry have sent in about forty or fifty infantry stragglers of the French, and have killed a dozen or more,—about fifty or sixty in all; several with bad pike or lance wounds.