From the questions put to me when taken, about the grand position, and on the way to St. Sebastian, I am sure that the French had a very imperfect notion of the exact state of that part of the mountains. My being a civilian was my excuse for giving them no information. Their loss in getting back again would have been greatly increased, had they got on to the next hill. As it was, from the river swelling, and the men not being able to cross the ford at which I passed, but being obliged to go round by Vera bridge, which was under our fire, the loss was very severe. Had I not been put across early I should have had that fire to pass through with them.
The country all the way to Bordeaux is barren and unproductive; mostly sandy heath with vines, and a few meadows near the stream. I saw no corn, only the Indian corn, and that much less luxuriant than here, and with very little head of green for forage. The consequence is, the French provisions and forage come from an immense distance, and the supplies are very difficult to procure; the exertions, however, are in proportion, and very unlike those in Spain of the Spaniards. Everything, for two hundred miles and more round, is in requisition, all the corn taken, and only bons given in return; wine the same; hay the same; every merchant’s car in the town, and all the country cars with oxen at work for the public. The districts off the roads send in to the depôts on the high roads; and from thence the corn, &c., is forwarded to the army, to the depôts at Bayonne, &c. The hay for the staff horses and cavalry comes, as Gazan told me himself, one hundred leagues, that is, nearly three or four hundred miles, from above Toulouse, &c., partly by water, but much by land. The people now feel for the first time what it is to supply their own army in their own country, and the grievance is no small one.
The army have had a half month’s pay; twenty months are due. The prospect of payment of the bons for the supplies is very remote indeed, and yet though they all grumble they act with zeal and spirit, and I still think, with the feelings of Frenchmen, would all unite against invasion. In spite of all this, things in general are still comparatively cheap; dear to Frenchmen, as they say exorbitant—to us reasonable, except colonial produce: bread about 4 sous a pound, or 2d. English; and good meat about 8d. English retailed; vegetables and fruit very cheap; wine equally so; oats and hay tolerably cheap; even as I fed my animals (three) at the inns for the day for about 12 or 14 livres travelling, three feeds of corn—small ones, to each—about 6 livres, or, as I generally gave them, 8 livres. Hay about 6 or 7 livres and good—cheaper when I bought the articles at Mont de Marsan. A good dinner at the inns, with a bottle of light wine, about 5s. each. This sometimes also covered the beds where we slept. Tea only to be had by ounces at a time as medicine; coffee, very dear; sugar (brown), from 4s. 6d. to 6s.; white sugar, 7s. the pound.
The consequence has been, in a great measure, to put an end to the great use of coffee: it is now a luxury for the rich, and even they generally breakfast à la fourchette, and drink little of it. Of Syrope de raisin, I bought a basin-full for about 9d. This is a sort of vinous treacle, and gives a taste to tea as if it were taken from a dirty wine-glass. The betterave sugar was to be had sometimes at Bayonne, but I did not meet with any. On some bad sugar being brought to him one day, a French Lieutenant-Colonel, by way of abuse, called it betterave, and said, it was only from some small sticks being in it, as really he had seen betterave sugar as good as any other: they still, however, give 6s. a-pound for brown island sugar.
The Chateau-Neuf, at Bayonne, was just like an English sponging-house. With money we were very well off. The man, however, cheated us; we quarrelled; I got redress from the General; and on my return got into the Chateau-Vieux instead, an old English castle, where we were in the same room where Palafox had been; the Commandant, a gentleman-like man—his wife a troublesome skinflint. The Commandant at Mont de Marsan was uncommonly liberal to us all, so were the people there; equally so, my patron and patrona; the civil engineer, Baron d’Huilliers, who first commanded at Bayonne, was also civil, but more distant. He is now gone to Bordeaux, and General Thevenot, the late Commandant at Vittoria, has succeeded him. Their reports were, that Soult was going to the North to replace Berthier, who was sick, and Suchet was to succeed in command here. Count Gazan, however, did not admit this, but never positively denied it. It was also said, that the Etat Major would remove to Bordeaux for the winter-quarters. Perhaps the events of to-day may hasten this. The firing is brisk all this time. We met three cavalry regiments on the retreat towards Pau and Toulouse for forage; the horses in fair order, but generally very inferior to ours in size; the men very fine, which was so much the worse for the animals that had to carry them. At one place, near Lain, the depôt of forage was empty. I met a man running hard with orders, the Major’s messenger; he was charged to inform the few neighbouring parishes, that unless they furnished and provided ready at the depôt so many rations of forage for three days for two squadrons of cavalry who were about to pass by twelve next day, all fit to move on immediately, the squadrons would be halted there that day to help themselves in the vicinity.
Small horses and mules were very cheap, as the forage rations were stopped to the subaltern officers in France, and they all consequently wanted to sell, and many of the country-people from the requisition wanted also to sell. Bayonne was declared in a state of siege for the purposes of police. One order of the police posted up in the Café Wagram at Bayonne directed, that no politics were to be discussed under pain of arrest. Out of the town, in the suburbs of St. Esprit, was a magnificent hotel, quite in the English style; there our party stopped, but were marched off to the Chateau. The activity exhibited by the French Commandant about Bayonne has been very great; one hundred and twenty guns have now been mounted, of one sort or another, instead of about three. This number has been collected all round the country, and new works are rising round the place every day. The young conscripts of the usual levy were being drilled; they were fine young lads of about seventeen or eighteen; too young for Spain, but who in a short time would make excellent soldiers. At first they appeared dull and a little unhappy; but in a few days they became gay like the rest.
The newly-raised thirty thousand for the twenty-four departments for Spain were not yet out, but are to be out this week. I understood they will be better men, being taken from the old lists of those who had previously escaped, some of them twenty-five years old. This grievance is very great, but the conscripts seem to forget it themselves, and the old parents can do nothing. It will tell, however, some time or other, I think; and I hope soon. My patrona told me that her sister’s husband had been drawn five years since, got off on payment of two thousand francs, and two francs per day since; he is now married, has two children, and is still liable to be called upon again. A wish for peace follows the relation of all these stories.
On the whole I was well treated, and it appears to me that in general the treatment of prisoners by the French is very good. Officers are allowed fifty francs a-month to live upon, and on marching, the same indemnité as the French; 5s. a Colonel and Major, 3s. a Captain, and 2s. 6d. a subaltern. Our being able to obtain money makes all the difference almost between our treatment and that of the Spanish officers, whom they dare not trust on their parole, so many having broken it. The worst treatment I experienced was being marched on foot from St. Jean de Luz to Bayonne, with our own deserters, after having been promised a horse, and kept back until we were caught in a thunder-storm, because these fellows could not or would not march. The soldiers are like themselves to the last; when marched as prisoners, they jumped over the fences to get apples. The French guard stared, but permitted it to be done.
October 7th, three o’clock.—The officers passing from the front tell me that all is going on well—that the French have given way almost everywhere, though they still hang to the high rocks on La Rhüne, near where I slept on the 31st. They say that the Spaniards have behaved well, but that the 52nd and second battalion of the 95th have suffered, while forcing the position through which I was marched in that thunder-storm. We have no orders to move here at present. The reports confirm the news that I brought in to Lord Wellington, that Soult has gone, and that Suchet commands. I know nothing accurately now, however, as I must not go and peep again for myself.
To return to France, and my dream there (for such it has appeared), I must give you a notion of a French placeman in a little way, not like our great sinecurists. My running friend, who carried the message about the forage, accompanied me side-by-side for a league. The people wished him joy of his prosperity; I asked him why? He said, “They think that I am making a fortune, having a place in the hospital; and what do you suppose it is?—I am the hospital-sexton; I bury all the dead, four or five in the twenty-four hours, and all at night, digging half the night. And for what?—for eighteen sous (or ninepence English) a day. This is not the way to make a fortune, you will allow. My companion makes a better thing of it: he is always tipsy, and leaves me to dig, but he always sings as he goes to the grave. The people who know his voice say, ‘There goes poor silly John!’ and give him a sous.”