The whole baggage and field equipage of three distinct armies fell, on this occasion, into the hands of the conquerors. One hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, four hundred caissons, twelve thousand rounds of ammunition, and two millions of musket-cartridges, with a thousand prisoners, were taken. The casualties on both sides were heavy. The British lost five hundred killed, two thousand eight hundred wounded; the Portuguese one hundred and fifty killed, nine hundred wounded; and the Spaniards eighty-nine of the former, and four hundred and sixty of the latter. The French loss, of course, was infinitely greater; and even by their own returns it was admitted to amount to eight thousand; but, prisoners included, it must have exceeded that number considerably.[227]
On the morning of the 22nd, the field of battle, and the roads for some miles in the rear, exhibited an appearance it seldom falls within human fortune to witness. There, lay the wreck of a mighty army; while plunder, accumulated during the French successes, and wrung from every part of Spain with unsparing rapacity, was recklessly abandoned to any who chose to seize it. Cannon and caissons, carriages and tumbrels, waggons of every description, were overturned or deserted—and a stranger mélange could not be imagined, than that which these enormous convoys presented to the eye. Here, was the personal baggage of a king; there, the scenery and decorations of a theatre. Munitions of war were mixed with articles of virtù—and scattered arms and packs, silks, embroidery, plate, and jewels, mingled together in wild disorder. One waggon was loaded with money, another with cartridges—while wounded soldiers, deserted women, and children of every age, every where implored assistance, or threw themselves for protection on the humanity of the victors. Here, a lady was overtaken in her carriage—in the next calash was an actress or fille-de-chambre,—while droves of oxen were roaming over the plain, intermingled with an endless quantity of sheep and goats, mules and horses, asses and cows.
That much valuable plunder came into the hands of the soldiery is certain; but the better portion fell to the peasantry and camp-followers. Two valuable captures were secured—a full military chest, and the baton[228] of Marshal Jourdan.
Were not the indiscriminating system of spoliation pursued by the French armies recollected, the enormous collection of plunder abandoned at Vitoria would appear incredible. From the highest to the lowest, all were bearing off some valuables from the country they had overrun; and even the king himself had not proved an exception—for, rolled in the imperials of his own coach, some of the finest pictures from the royal galleries were discovered. To secure or facilitate their transport, they had been removed from their frames, and deposited in the royal carriage, no doubt, destined to add to the unrivalled collection, that by similar means had been abstracted from the Continent, and presented to the Louvre. Wellington, however, interrupted the Spanish paintings in their transit—and thus saved the trouble and formality of a restoration.[229]
BATTLES OF THE PYRENEES.
Joseph Buonaparte retreats into France.—Pamplona blockaded, and San Sebastian besieged.—Battles of the Pyrenees.
The disordered state in which the French army appeared before the gates of Pamplona, rendered it advisable to forbid them entrance, and their retreat was necessarily continued. Graham, with the left corps of the allies, had endeavoured to cut off Foy; but, though he failed in effecting it, he forced him, after abandoning Tolosa, to cross the frontier. Hill’s corps followed the French on the Pamplona road; and another part of his army was detached by Lord Wellington against Clausel by Logrono, while a second corps moved rapidly on Tudela to interrupt his retreat. By marching on Zaragossa, Clausel retired into France by the pass of Jaca; but, in this hasty operation, he lost all his artillery, and was obliged to abandon a redoubt with its garrison, which some time afterwards fell into Mina’s hands. Pancorba surrendered to O’Donel, and Passages to Longa; Castro and Gueteria were evacuated; and south of the Ebro, every post, one after the other, was yielded to the Spaniards.
Successes followed the march of the allies. Suchet retired from Valencia on the 6th of July; and Joseph Buonaparte was driven from the valley of San Estevan on the 7th by Hill and Lord Dalhousie—the first marching by the pass of Lanz, while the other turned the right of the enemy.
Wellington was now in possession of the passes of the Pyrenees; and in the short space of two months had moved his victorious army across the kingdom of Spain, and changed his cantonments from the frontier of Portugal to a position in the Pyrenees, from which he looked down upon the southern provinces of France.