CHAPTER X.
Movements of the Army—Wellington on the Portuguese—His Personal Habits—St. Sebastian—The Siege—Miseries of War—Wounded Officers—The Prince of Orange—Vestiges of the Retreat—English Papers—False Accounts of the Campaign—Incidents of the War.
Head-quarters, Lezaca,
July 21, 1813.
My dear M——,
Here we are still, deluged with rain almost incessantly, accompanied at times with violent storms of wind, hail, and thunder. This is terrible for the troops in camp, and for every one more or less, and indeed for everything except the Indian corn, which thrives here most luxuriantly in consequence of this perpetual wet. I took a ride (the 19th) up to the hill above the seventh division as I intended; it was a league and a half, the latter part very steep. The French were in sight all along the hills on the other side of Bera, all around one ridge, but quite quiet. When at the summit I saw the sea-coast around Bayonne (though not the town itself), and the low country in France, for probably thirty miles inland, with the enclosed fields and villages. It was a very fine prospect; I was only sorry to see that the French had apparently so much more productive a country immediately in their rear than we had. They must now, however, be supplied at the expense of old France. We are but ill off here for everything just now, until our supplies come regularly to this coast.
Passages is to be the depôt and landing-place, I hear, for our infantry, and Bilboa for cavalry. Major-general Lord Aylmer is to-day setting off to take a command at Passages; he expects nearly four thousand men there very soon. We still hear the battering guns of St. Sebastian continually roaring at a distance; I fear we may lose many men in this siege. Good luck, however, may do something for us, and the French seem everywhere dispirited; sickness, at present, if this weather lasts, will be our most destructive foe.
Suchet, I hear, left a garrison at Murviedro, when he crossed the Ebro. They seem to have intended to give us some tough work until they were ready to return; I hope here, at least, that will not be so easy. Both sides are now strongly posted, and the assailant must have the worst of it. Soult is said to have refused to take the command of the army here unless the pay of the troops was more regular. Talking of this, Lord Wellington paid the highest compliment to Bonaparte, by saying, that if he came himself, he should, as he always did, reckon his presence equal to a reinforcement of forty thousand men, for that it would give a turn to everything.
Lord Wellington, talking of the Portuguese, said that it was extraordinary just now, to observe their conduct; that no troops could behave better; that they never had now a notion of turning; and that nothing could equal their forwardness now, and willing, ready tempers. I am sorry to say that some of our foreign corps do not go on as well. Of the Brunswick corps, ten went off from picquet two nights since to the French, and fourteen from the camp, and others have gone off also; and some have been surprised, so that I believe they are ordered to be sent more to the rear, and cannot be trusted. I do not wonder at it, as Government have taken men from the French prisons, who were only taken last year, and who, no doubt, only enlisted on purpose to desert the first opportunity.
Lezaca, July 22nd.—To-day Lord Wellington celebrates the battle of Salamanca by a great dinner. His victories and successes will soon ruin him in wine and eating, and if he goes on as he has, he had better keep open house at once every day, and his calendar of feasts will be as full as the Romish one with red letter days. This morning the guns have been thundering salvoes.
I think the breach at St. Sebastian must be ready soon. I only hope that we shall not lose many of our fine fellows. Pamplona is invested more closely—that is all that is attempted. Two sallies have been repulsed; there are about fifteen thousand Spaniards there. I was sorry to hear that bread was, very lately, in the town at the same price as when we were first there, and that a low Spanish price; this does not look much like starving the garrison out. For a regular siege we have no means, and the place is formidable from the very circumstance that makes it look otherwise—the citadel is all flat, there is nothing to fire at, and no ground to approach it by. The scenery all about this lower Pyrenees and coast, is like the north coast of Devonshire and Somersetshire, a little enlarged as you get inland, and so increasing in size, but the same character remaining for a considerable extent, only that the valleys become deeper, and the hills higher. There is nothing, however, so striking here as the passage of the Ebro, and the valley near where we crossed it.