These conversations give a value to the Frenchman which he does not otherwise possess, though a clever man. I found Lord Wellington the day before yesterday busy with all the Spanish staff and General Murray, with a dozen great Spanish drawings and plans of the mountains about them; they were comparing our several labours together. The Spanish staff draughtsmen have a good character. I should like to have been called in, but I was only waiting an audience at the other end of the room.
Yesterday, Lord Wellington went off on horseback over the mountains, for Irun; he then went on to St. Sebastian, and was not back here till nearly nine at night. They are pounding away at that fortress from fifty-one pieces of ordnance, mortars and all; but nothing is done yet.
The 29th.—No news yet. Still battering away at St. Sebastian. We had a ridiculous event here yesterday: an enraged bull—belonging, I believe, to the Commissariat—broke into the quarters of the Commissary-general, Sir Robert Kennedy, and contriving to get to the room of the clerks, put all to flight, one this way, the other that, in the greatest alarm. All were dispersed in an instant. After upsetting a few things, the bull retreated into the garden, and jumped over the wall, without doing any serious mischief. The joke was, that the owner had contrived this, on account of nonpayment of his demand.
Our fifty-one battering pieces have now been at work three days, and have laid open one end of the entire wall of the town of St. Sebastian, and to-morrow is talked of for the assault. Two days since the garrison made another sortie, and carried off a few men; and, upon the whole, I think people are not quite satisfied with the conduct of the fifth division, who are employed. Ever since our retreat and the former sortie, they seem to have had in some measure a sort of panic. We have had a general Court-martial on Major O’Halloran, for neglect on that occasion as field-officer in the trenches; but he is acquitted on the ground that the orders he gave were correct, but that he was disobeyed. The facts on the trial were these:—
A sortie was expected all the night, and peculiar precautions were taken accordingly; every fifth man sentry, &c., by order of the General. All was quiet until an hour after daybreak and more; then a Captain Canvers, of the Portuguese service, who has since shot himself, seems to have suffered the sentries to enter the trenches, and rest on their arms for security, without orders, or rather against orders. At a little after six out came the French, and another Portuguese captain seems to have misunderstood his orders, and did not suffer his sentries to fire instantly, thinking that he had no orders to this effect; he was made prisoner. In short, the consequence was, that about fifty French were in an instant in the trenches, when half-a-dozen of our people fired and fell back. The Portuguese were mostly in a panic, and they were nearly six hundred out of seven hundred then employed. They did once attempt to get up the bank and form, but the sandy ground gave way, and in they went again. This increased the confusion, and no exertions of our or their officers could rally the men, until they had been quite driven out of the trenches, and pursued to the little village in ruins under the convent. There Major O’Halloran rallied them, and, with a fresh English working-party just arrived, drove the French back again to the town, but in the meantime many prisoners were made.
Lord Wellington himself, I think, is not pleased with the fifth division; and, as some proof of this, has ordered three hundred of the first division, one hundred and fifty of the light, one hundred and fifty of the fourth, and, I believe, one hundred and fifty of the third (of each of which one-third are to be of the Portuguese regiments), to march to-day to assist in forming the storming-party to-morrow. This is a cut at the fifth; and these men are all volunteers, and the orders are to send men who, by their cool courage and good conduct, will be likely to succeed. In a measure the success of this will depend on these qualities. The fifth division ought now to volunteer, trying first alone, I think.
There was nothing but confusion in the two divisions here last night, (the light and fourth,) from the eagerness of the officers to volunteer, and the difficulty of determining who were to be refused and who allowed to go and run their heads into a hole in the wall, full of fire and danger! Major Napier was here quite in misery, because, though he had volunteered first, Lieutenant-colonel Hunt of the 52nd, his superior officer, insisted on his right to go. The latter said that Napier had been in the breach at Badajoz, and he had a fair claim to go now. So it is among the subalterns; ten have volunteered where two are to be accepted. Hunt, being Lieutenant-colonel, has nothing but honour to look to; as to promotion, he is past that. The men say that they don’t know what they are to do, but they are ready to go anywhere.
I fear we shall find the French have run a ditch across and a new second wall behind those we have destroyed, and that we may have tough work yet. The shells, however, which are sent every ten minutes into the castle, and shake the dust out of its roof in a fine style, must make the place rather too warm to hold just now; and I heartily wish it would induce them to give in before all the bloodshed begins. They fire now but very little. Lord Wellington and every one is gone over to St. Sebastian to-day; and having nothing to do, I have made up my mind to be off also.
August 30th.—I was on the point of setting out when I heard that the storming was put off a day; as the French are in motion, and making pretence at least to relieve St. Sebastian, and as the fourth division marched accordingly this morning, and head-quarters may, therefore, suddenly be off, I determined to be quiet here, especially as I do not feel quite well. Lord Wellington came home at nine o’clock, and was off again before eight this morning. We remain here much in the dark, of course, when he is away. General Murray stays here to protect us with the light division in our front.