Three generals, Leith, Oswald, and Robinson, had been hurt in the trenches; Sir Richard Fletcher, a brave man, was killed; Colonel Burgoyne, next in command of the engineers, was wounded. The carnage at the breaches was appalling. Nearly half the volunteers were struck down, the fifth division suffered in the same proportion, and the whole loss since the renewal of the siege exceeded two thousand five hundred men and officers. Amongst the last may be mentioned Lieutenant John O’Connel of the 43rd, in blood nearly related to the celebrated turbulent agitator. He was gentle, amiable, and modest, and brave as man could be, and having previously been in several storming parties here again sought in such dangerous service the promotion he had earned before without receiving—he found death.
Monte Orgullo was now to be attacked. Steep and difficult to assail it was, and just below the castle four batteries connected with masonry were stretched across its face; from their extremities, also, ramps protected by redans led to the convent of Santa Téresa, the most salient part of the defence. Towards the harbour and behind the mountain were sea batteries, and if all these works had been of good construction and defended by fresh troops the siege would have been difficult; but the garrison was shattered by the recent assault, most of the engineers were killed, the governor wounded, five hundred men sick or hurt, and the soldiers fit for duty, only thirteen hundred, had four hundred prisoners to guard. The castle was small, the bomb-proofs filled with ammunition and provisions, and but ten guns were left for service, three being on the sea line. There was little water, and the soldiers had to lie on the naked rock, exposed to fire, or only covered by asperities of ground; they were however still resolute to fight, and received nightly, by sea, supplies of ammunition in small quantities.
Lord Wellington arrived the day after the assault, and judging regular approaches up the naked rock impracticable, doubting also the power of vertical fire, he resolved to breach the remaining line of defence and then storm the Orgullo. Meanwhile from the Santa Téresa convent, which was actually in the town, the French killed many men; and when, after several days, it was assaulted, they set the lower parts on fire and retired by a communication from the roof to a ramp on the hill behind. All this time the flames were licking up the houses, and the Orgullo was overwhelmed with vertical fire.
On the 3rd of September the governor was summoned, he was unshaken, and the vertical fire was continued day and night, the British prisoners suffering as well as the enemy; for the officer in the castle, irritated by the misery of the garrison, cruelly refused to let the unfortunate captives make trenches to cover themselves. The French however complain, that their wounded and sick men, placed in an empty magazine with a black flag flying, were fired upon, although the English prisoners, in their uniforms, were posted around to strengthen the claim of humanity.
New breaching batteries were now commenced and armed with guns, brought from the Chofres at low water across the Urumea, at first in the night, but the difficulty of labouring in the water during darkness finally induced the artillery officers to transport them in daylight under the enemy’s batteries, which did not however fire. In the town labour was impeded by the flaming houses, but near the foot of the Orgullo the ruins furnished shelter for musketeers to gall the garrison, and the Santa Clara Island battery was actively worked by the seamen. With the besieged ammunition was scarce, and the horrible vertical fire, contrary to Lord Wellington’s expectation, subdued their energy; yet the action was prolonged until the 8th of September, when fifty-nine heavy battering pieces opened at once from the island, the isthmus, the horn-work and the Chofres. In two hours the Mirador and Queen’s battery were broken, the French fire extinguished, and the hill furrowed in a frightful manner; the bread-ovens were destroyed, a magazine exploded, and the castle, small and crowded with men, was overlaid with the descending shells. Then proudly bending to fate the governor surrendered. On the 9th this brave man and his heroic garrison, reduced to one-third of their original number, and leaving five hundred wounded behind, marched out with the honours of war. The siege thus terminated, after sixty-three days’ open trenches, and just as the tempestuous season, then beginning to vex the coast, would have rendered a continuance of the sea blockade impossible.
The excesses committed in the storming of San Sebastian caused great indignation in Spain, and justly; but they were used by the Spanish government to create a hatred of the British army, and, horrible as were the facts, it is certain the atrocities were the work of a few. Writers have not been wanting however to excuse them on the insulting ground, that no soldiers can be restrained after storming a town and British soldiers least of all, because they are brutish and insensible to honour! Shame on such calumnies! What makes the British soldier fight as no other soldier ever fights? His pay! Soldiers of all nations receive pay. At the period of this assault, a sergeant of the 28th, named Ball, being sent with a party to the coast from Roncesvalles to make purchases for his officers, placed two thousand dollars entrusted to him with a commissary, secured his receipt and persuaded his party to join in the storm. He survived, reclaimed the money, made his purchases, and returned to his regiment. And these are the men, these the spirits who are called too brutish to work upon except by fear! It is to fear they are most insensible!
Battles on the Bidassoa. (Aug. 1813.)
While Sebastian was being stormed Soult fought a battle with the covering force, not willingly, nor with much hope of success; but being averse to let it fall without another effort, he thought a bold demeanour would best hide his real weakness. Guided however by the progress of the siege, which he knew through his sea communication, he awaited the last moment of action, striving meanwhile to improve his resources and revive public confidence. Of his dispersed soldiers eight thousand had rejoined, and he was promised a reinforcement of thirty thousand conscripts; but these last were yet to be enrolled, and neither the progress of the siege nor the panic along the frontier, which recurred with increased violence after the late battles, would suffer him to wait.
He knew his enemy’s superior strength in positions, number and military confidence, yet expected, as his former effort had interrupted the siege, another would produce a like effect; and he hoped, by repeating the disturbance, as long as he could by sea reinforce and supply the garrison, to render the siege a wasting operation. To renew the movement against Pampeluna was most advantageous, but it required fifty thousand infantry for attack, twenty thousand for observation on the Lower Bidassoa, and he had not so many. His supplies also were uncertain, the loss of all the military carriages at Vittoria was still felt, the resources of the country were reluctantly yielded by the people, and to act on the side of St. Jean Pied de Port was therefore impracticable.
To attack the allies’ centre was unpromising. Two mountain-chains were to be forced before the movement could seriously affect Wellington, and as the ways were impracticable for guns success would not give any decisive result. To attack the left of the allies by the great road of Irun remained. He could there employ forty-five thousand infantry, but the positions were of perilous strength. The Upper Bidassoa was in Wellington’s power, because the light division, occupying Vera and the heights of Santa Barbara on the right bank, commanded all the bridges. The Lower Bidassoa, flowing from Vera with a bend to the left, separated the hostile armies, and against that line, of nine miles, the attack was necessarily directed. From the broken bridge of Behobia, in front of Irun, to the sea, the river, broad and tidal, offered no apparent passage; from the fords of Biriatu up to those of Vera, three miles, there was only the one passage of Andarlassa, two miles below Vera, and there steep craggy mountain-ridges without roads lining the river forbade great operations. Thus the points of attack were restricted to Vera itself and the fords between Biriatu and Behobia.