BATTLES NEAR BAYONNE,
December 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th, 1813.
The centre and left wing of our army advanced on the morning of the 9th of December, and drove the enemy within their entrenchments, threatening an attack on their lines. Lord Wellington had the double object, in this movement, of reconnoitring their works, and effecting the passage of the Nive with his right wing. The rivers Nive and Adour unite in the town of Bayonne, so that while we were threatening to storm the works on one side, Sir Rowland Hill passed the Nive, without opposition, on the other, and took up his ground, with his right on the Adour and his left on the Nive, on a contracted space, within a very short distance of the walls of the town. On our side we were engaged in a continued skirmish until dark, when we retired to our quarters, under the supposition that we had got our usual week's allowance, and that we should remain quiet again for a time.
We turned out at daylight on the 10th; but, as there was a thick drizzling rain which prevented us from seeing any thing, we soon turned in again. My servant soon after came to tell me that Sir Lowry Cole, and some of his staff, had just ascended to the top of the chateau, a piece of information which did not quite please me, for I fancied that the general had just discovered our quarter to be better than his own, and had come for the purpose of taking possession of it. However, in less than five minutes, we received an order for our battalion to move up instantly to the support of the piquets; and, on my descending to the door, to mount my horse, I found Sir Lowry standing there, who asked if we had received any orders; and, on my telling him that we had been ordered up to support the piquets, he immediately desired a staff-officer to order up one of his brigades to the rear of the chateau. This was one of the numerous instances in which we had occasion to admire the prudence and forethought of the great Wellington! He had foreseen the attack that would take place, and had his different divisions disposed to meet it. We no sooner moved up, than we found ourselves a party engaged along with the piquets; and, under a heavy skirmishing fire, retiring gradually from hedge to hedge, according as the superior force of the enemy compelled us to give ground, until we finally retired within our home, the chateau, which was the first part of our position that was meant to be defended in earnest. We had previously thrown up a mud rampart around it, and loop-holed the different outhouses, so that we had nothing now to do, but to line the walls and shew determined fight. The forty-third occupied the church-yard to our left, which was also partially fortified; and the third Cácadores and our third battalion, occupied the space between, behind the hedge-rows, while the fourth division was in readiness to support us from the rear. The enemy came up to the opposite ridge, in formidable numbers, and began blazing at our windows and loop-holes, and shewing some disposition to attempt it by storm; but they thought better of it and withdrew their columns a short distance to the rear, leaving the nearest hedge lined with their skirmishers. An officer of ours, Mr. Hopewood, and one of our serjeants, had been killed in the field opposite, within twenty yards of where the enemy's skirmishers now were. We were very anxious to get possession of their bodies, but had not force enough to effect it. Several French soldiers came through the hedge, at different times, with the intention, as we thought, of plundering, but our men shot every one who attempted to go near them, until towards evening, when a French officer approached, waving a white handkerchief and pointing to some of his men who were following him with shovels. Seeing that his intention was to bury them, we instantly ceased firing, nor did we renew it again that night.
The forty-third, from their post at the church, kept up an incessant shower of musketry the whole of the day, at what was conceived, at the time, to be a very long range; but from the quantity of balls which were afterwards found sticking in every tree, where the enemy stood, it was evident that their birth must have been rather uncomfortable.
One of our officers, in the course of the day, had been passing through a deep road-way, between two banks, with hedge-rows, when, to his astonishment, a dragoon and his horse tumbled heels over head into the road, as if they had been fired out of a cloud. Neither of them were the least hurt; but it must have been no joke that tempted him to take such a flight.
Soult expected, by bringing his whole force to bear on our centre and left wing, that he would have succeeded in forcing it, or, at all events, of obliging Lord Wellington to withdraw Sir Rowland Hill from beyond the Nive; but he effected neither, and darkness left the two armies on the ground which they had fought on.
General Alten and Sir James Kempt took up their quarters with us in the chateau: our sentries and those of the enemy stood within pistol-shot of each other in the ravine below.
Young Arcangues, I presume, must have been rather disappointed at the result of the day; for, even giving him credit for every kindly feeling towards us, his wishes must still have been in favour of his countrymen; but when he found that his chateau was to be a bone of contention, it then became his interest that we should keep possession of it; and he held out every inducement for us to do so; which, by the by, was quite unnecessary, seeing that our own comfort so much depended on it. However, though his supplies of claret had failed some days before, he now discovered some fresh cases in the cellar, which he immediately placed at our disposal; and, that our dire resolve to defend the fortress should not be melted by weak woman's wailings, he fixed an arm-chair on a mule, mounted his grandmother on it, and sent her off to the rear, while the balls were whizzing about the neighbourhood in a manner to which even she, poor old lady, was not altogether insensible, though she had become a mounted heroine at a period when she had given up all idea of ever sitting on any thing more lively than a coffin.
During the whole of the 11th each army retained the same ground, and though there was an occasional exchange of shots at different points, yet nothing material occurred.
The enemy began throwing up a six-gun battery opposite our chateau; and we employed ourselves in strengthening the works, as a precautionary measure, though we had not much to dread from it, as they were so strictly within range of our rifles, that he must have been a lucky artilleryman who stood there to fire a second shot.