My dear M——,
Several of our Vittoria sick and wounded now begin to return and join their regiments. Major Freemantle came back just in time for dinner yesterday, and amused us with an account of all your madness in England about the battle of Vittoria.
General Cole, with whom I told you I was going to dine, lives very comfortably. To do this, even in his way, he has now travelling with him about ten or twelve goats for milk, a cow, and about thirty-six sheep at least, with a shepherd, who always march, feed on the road side, on the mountains, &c., and encamp with him. When you think of this, that wine and everything is to be carried about, from salt and pepper and tea-cups to saucepans, boilers, dishes, chairs, and tables, on mules, you may guess the trouble and expense of a good establishment here.
I mentioned to you the iron-works all about this country, and their simple construction; they make, however, I believe, excellent iron. For this purpose they mix the ore of this country, which is too brittle, with the ore they fetch from near Bilboa, which is rather too ductile and soft, and of the two form an excellent compound, which used to supply much of the southern part of France.
Our great guns are, I am told, to begin pounding to-day at St. Sebastian again, but I have not heard them yet. The old breach will not do at all; it is, we are told, mined and filled with little intended explosions. A seventy-four and some frigates are now near. I wish they would let the sailors try the sea side when we storm. I think they would get in somehow at once into the castle.
August the 23rd.—I have now a fresh set of Courts in every division again, as my last are broken up. One Deputy Judge-Advocate sent me, out of curiosity, a history of his Court-casualties, &c., nine members out of fifteen, and the Judge-Advocate, killed or severely wounded, since the 22nd of May, two prosecutors and three witnesses, all officers. We are trying to clear as we go, and to prevent all arrears, and we hang away to prevent desertion. I am told that the French do the same and still more, but their people will go home to the rear; this is more natural. We are told that ten men from each company are gone by orders to the rear also—some foolishly say to quell riots, for which purpose ten old men would be the most useless possible; but the most plausible account is, to drill new conscripts. Some deserters say they are sent even to Italy for this; I believe just now that they are not prepared to move, and will be content to remain quiet. We have alternate accounts, of course, of war and peace. To-day two women (one French, the other Spanish,) of the French prisoners from Vittoria, came in here on their way to join the French. Lord Wellington, however, has stopped them, and says he will have no more sent over until the French release about three hundred mothers and wives, &c., of the Guerillas, who were carried off by them as hostages for the return home of the Guerilla relations, so they cry and think this very sad to be put upon the same footing as such creatures. One of the ladies asked the Adjutant-general whether she had better write to her friends openly, to propose an exchange, or in cipher? Upon which he thought a cipher lady should not remain here, at least long. We now give some flour to Longa’s people for bread, and try to make regulars of them.
It is very terrible that our people, muleteers, soldiers, &c., do more mischief by far than the French, except when the latter do it by way of punishment and revenge; at ordinary times their discipline is much better than ours. The heads of the Indian corn are now nearly all eaten off about here by the cattle, and cut by the soldiers to roast, as well as the leaves for our animals. The Spaniards, however, in some degree have their revenge; we bring a quantity of money into the country in spite of our bad pay, and this they fleece us out of in high style. They sell everything like Jews, and are naturally exorbitant, greedy, and avaricious; this seems the general character. So we go on! They cheat our men as much as they can, and our men get all they can gratis; upon the whole, however, if we remain stationary, we benefit the country.
Lord Wellington yesterday said it was stated in his letters from Lisbon, that Portugal was miserable without us. No money, no markets, nothing doing. I believe he was half joking with the Portuguese agent here; but he really meant that we were much missed there. The muleteers with us are the worst. Their terms were, a dollar a-day each mule, and one for a man for every three mules, and rations. They have gone on four years, and more; they are now, I believe, sixteen months in arrears in their pay, having just got one month lately. If paid up they would make fortunes, and have no pretence to behave ill. As it is, they steal, plunder, turn out their mules in the corn, &c., and from one of the most orderly classes in Spain, are become the least so. There are about ten thousand of the mules in this state, and I suppose four thousand muleteers. Their pay is almost more than the army; and when is it to be paid or how? there lies the rub.
The people say that we have brought the plague of flies, and I really believe we have increased the swarms by the number of dead carcasses, and various kinds of filth caused by the density of the population at present. We do not bury so regularly as the French, either our offal or dead animals, or anything; the Spaniards not at all, unless we do it for them. To give you a notion of the flies, they eat up all my wafers, if left open, and spot my letters all over if left one day on the table.
Nothing can look better than the condition of the Portuguese troops. They are cleaner than our men; or look so, at least. They are better clothed now by far, for they have taken the best care of their clothes; they are much gayer, and have an air, and a je ne sais quoi, particularly the Caçadores both the officers and private men, quite new in a Portuguese. It is curious to observe the effects of good direction and example, how soon it tells. The French seem to do the same with Italians, and with every one; or rather have done so, for I hope this may not cease in part at least.