Head-quarters, Vera, Nov. 5, 1813.
My dear M——,
Here we are still, but rather nearer a move than when I wrote last. Between business and my chum ——, who is still here with me, I could never spare a moment to write. Even now, at three o’clock, I have been five or six hours at work.
The weather has improved, however, these last two days, and now tends to frost. Anything is better than the incessant wet we have here, up to that part of the army at Roncesvalles; perpetual torrents from the north-west, almost night and day, so that the roads have been nearly impassable. At Roncesvalles they have had snow in the valley fourteen inches deep. So close as in the valley of Baztan, at Elisondo, it has been as rainy as here. We have now cold, thick, November, London, foggy mornings, until nearly eleven o’clock forenoon, and then a clear fine day, but not yet absolute frost. Thermometer about 36° or 37°. Meadows all swampy. On the whole, however, the snow gentlemen have had much the best of it, though a little uneasy as to their supplies just now, from the fear of snow stoppages.
Pamplona has at last fallen, as you will have learnt by the last mail, for I believe Lord Wellington kept the packet on purpose back two days. The garrison, four thousand two hundred, it is said, are to embark to-day at Passages if possible, at least as soon as they can be got ready. Don Carlos made them submit to his terms, as we hear, in toto. They were even compelled to give up the Juramentudas, besides the fortification artillery. Report says fifty-seven field guns have been found there. This shows us the danger we escaped by Lord Wellington’s presence of mind, and the bravery of our men on the 28th of July last. Had the French got a league further, they would have found this fine field train all ready, and a reinforcement of near five thousand men in the garrison. No one can tell how this might have changed matters. We have still eighteen guns here, with the horses living on leaves, fern, and corn, but ready to play upon a new star-work the French are every day making more of, on a hill close to La Rhüne, which they still occupy near Sarré. I think these guns will surprise them a little. At present, I conclude, from general report, that we are only waiting for the rains to run down and the roads to dry a little; and if the weather of these last two days continue, every one says that we shall soon make a push on.
Our men have had a miserable time of it lately; and when uncomfortable and idle, I am sorry to say, they always make work for me. We hear of daily losses, plunder, &c., and the Spaniards perform their part well in this respect. General O’Lalor yesterday found his secretary had run away, down towards Madrid, with nearly two thousand dollars, for he trusted him with everything. Last time I dined at head-quarters Lord Wellington got into a long conversation with me for nearly two hours about the poor-laws, and the assize of bread, about the Catholic question, the state of Ireland, &c., just as if he had nothing else upon his mind. In many points we agreed very well, particularly as to what would be necessary to be done in Ireland—if anything; but he thinks nothing should be done at all. He is still alarmed at the separation spirit which he thinks exists there, and the remains of a Jacobin feeling in the lower classes in England.
6th November.—Poor —— must pass an uncomfortable time with me here, and yet I suffer much more from having him, and he is little aware how inconvenient he is to me.
To-day, 6th November, I received three letters from England. I see there is a magnificent order of the Duke of York about parcels to the army, up to a ton weight, being forwarded to officers by the Commissariat. A few parcels would make the Commissary stare a little, when, with nearly twelve thousand mules, we can scarcely be supplied with bread and corn, and not with forage. You seem to know so little about the real state of things here in England, that I think the General, who came half way up from Lisbon to review, and then gave it up, should be employed to explain the difficulties in the duties of office. The Commissary-general says that it will take him an entire new office, which he must write home for, to keep the accounts which this new plan will require.
Our troops at Roncesvalles have been terribly off; some of the guns are buried in the snow there; some Spaniards, as well as English, have perished by the cold, and one picket was obliged to be dug out. I hear that they are now moving away, and that an attack by that pass must be abandoned; but we shall soon know for certain if this dry weather lasts. Our great men were all in the front, peeping to-day into France from the mountains which surround this hollow. Our army-post to one division, with the dragoon carrying it, was caught two days since,—picked up, probably, as I was; he had got a little out of his way, somehow. I hope no letters of importance were caught; but it was provoking. The French, it is said, sent back one letter to General Oswald, opened, and said that the rest were all immaterial; however, they did not return them. The aide-de-camp of the late governor of Pamplona has been here for the last two days, Monsieur Pomade, a gentleman-like man; he says when the Vittoria army arrived at Pamplona on June the 24th, the garrison was three thousand strong, and the place provisioned for one hundred days complete, but that that army, en passant, gave them a thousand more effective men and five hundred sick. This caused them to give in sooner than they otherwise should. He says that they never expected their present fate, but that they knew nothing, and never had any communication whatever with France or Soult; that they sent out several times, but never got any one in. This is more than we can say at St. Sebastian, and does Don Carlos some credit.
The new crosses for the victories are very handsome—the medals so so—and the former will look strange with a whole row of clasps, which I suppose Lord Wellington must have now, for he has already two, up to Salamanca, in addition to the cross. I think the thing is either too general, or not enough so—a selection of distinguished men, of all ranks, would be better than a general distribution to all of certain ranks and situations. It now shows little more than that a man had a certain rank in such a battle, and not that he performed anything more than his neighbours. A selection might have descended with advantage even to the privates. Of course many grumble, and are disappointed that others have more marks and clasps than they have; that, however, would always be the case.