History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 4

by William Francis Patrick Napier

This proceeding was too little in accord with the honour of the French army to be supported, and before the Spanish frontier was passed, Grant, it matters not how, was made acquainted with the contents of the letter. Now the custom at Bayonne, in ordinary cases, was for the prisoner to wait on the authorities, and receive a passport to travel to Verdun, and all this was duly accomplished; meanwhile the delivering of the fatal letter being, by certain means, delayed, Grant, with a wonderful readiness and boldness, resolved not to escape towards the Pyrenees, thinking that he would naturally be pursued in that direction. He judged that if the governor of Bayonne could not recapture him at once, he would for his own security suppress the letter in hopes the matter would be no further thought of; judging, I say, in this acute manner, he on the instant inquired at the hotels, if any French officer was going to Paris, and finding that general Souham, then on his return from Spain, was so bent, he boldly introduced himself, and asked permission to join his party. The other readily assented; and while thus travelling, the general, unacquainted with Marmont’s intentions, often rallied his companion about his adventures, little thinking that he was then himself an instrument in forwarding the most dangerous and skilful of them all.

In passing through Orleans, Grant, by a species of intuition, discovered an English agent, and from him received a recommendation to another secret agent in Paris, whose assistance would be necessary to his final escape; for he looked upon Marmont’s double dealing, and the expressed design to take away his life, as equivalent to a discharge of his parole, which was moreover only given with respect to Spain. When he arrived at Paris he took leave of Souham, opened an intercourse with the Parisian agent, from whom he obtained money, and by his advice, avoided appearing before the police, to have his passport examined. He took a lodging in a very public street, frequented the coffee-houses, and even visited the theatres without fear, because the secret agent, who had been long established and was intimately connected with the police, had ascertained that no inquiry about his escape had been set on foot.

In this manner he passed several weeks, at the end of which, the agent informed him that a passport was ready for one Jonathan Buck, an American, who had died suddenly, on the very day it was to have been claimed. Seizing this occasion, Grant boldly demanded the passport, with which he instantly departed for the mouth of the Loire, because certain reasons, not necessary to mention, led him to expect more assistance there than at any other port. However, new difficulties awaited him and were overcome by fresh exertions of his surprising talents, which fortune seemed to delight in aiding.

He first took a passage for America in a ship of that nation, but its departure being unexpectedly delayed, he frankly explained his true situation to the captain, who desired him to assume the character of a discontented seaman, and giving him a sailor’s dress and forty dollars, sent him to lodge the money in the American consul’s hands as a pledge, that he would prosecute the captain for ill usage when he reached the United States; this being the custom on such occasions the consul gave him a certificate which enabled him to pass from port to port as a discharged sailor seeking a ship.

Thus provided, after waiting some days, Grant prevailed upon a boatman, by a promise of ten Napoleons, to row him in the night towards a small island, where, by usage, the English vessels watered unmolested, and in return permitted the few inhabitants to fish and traffic without interruption. In the night the boat sailed, the masts of the British ships were dimly seen on the other side of the island, and the termination of his toils appeared at hand, when the boatman, either from fear or malice, suddenly put about and returned to port. In such a situation, some men would have striven in desperation to force fortune, and so have perished; the spirits of others would have sunk in despair, for the money which he had promised was all that remained of his stock, and the boatman, notwithstanding his breach of contract, demanded the whole; but with inexpressible coolness and resolution, Grant gave him one Napoleon instead of ten, and a rebuke for his misconduct. The other having threatened a reference to the police, soon found that he was no match in subtlety for his opponent, who told him plainly that he would then denounce him as aiding the escape of a prisoner of war, and would adduce the great price of his boat as a proof of his guilt!

This menace was too formidable to be resisted, and Grant in a few days engaged an old fisherman, who faithfully performed his bargain; but now there were no English vessels near the island; however the fisherman cast his nets and caught some fish, with which he sailed towards the southward, where he had heard there was an English ship of war. In a few hours they obtained a glimpse of her, and were steering that way, when a shot from a coast-battery brought them to, and a boat with soldiers put off to board them; the fisherman was steadfast and true; he called Grant his son, and the soldiers by whom they expected to be arrested were only sent to warn them not to pass the battery, because the English vessel they were in search of was on the coast. The old man, who had expected this, bribed the soldiers with his fish, assuring them he must go with his son or they would starve, and that he was so well acquainted with the coast he could always escape the enemy. His prayers and presents prevailed, he was desired to wait under the battery till night, and then depart; but under pretence of arranging his escape from the English vessel, he made the soldiers point out her bearings so exactly, that when the darkness came, he ran her straight on board, and the intrepid officer stood in safety on the quarter-deck.

After this Grant reached England and obtained permission to choose a French officer of equal rank with himself, to send to France, that no doubt might remain about the propriety of his escape; and great was his astonishment to find, in the first prison he visited, the old fisherman and his real son, who had meanwhile been captured notwithstanding a protection given to them for their services. Grant, whose generosity and benevolence were as remarkable as the qualities of his understanding, soon obtained their release, and having sent them with a sum of money to France returned himself to the Peninsula, and within four months from the date of his first capture was again on the Tormes, watching Marmont’s army! Other strange incidents of his life I could mention, were it not more fitting to quit a digression, already too wide; yet I was unwilling to pass an occasion of noticing one adventure of this generous and spirited, and yet gentle-minded man, who having served his country nobly and ably in every climate, died, not long since, exhausted by the continual hardships he had endured.

Having now shewn the prudence of lord Wellington with respect to the campaign generally, it remains to consider the siege of Badajos, which has so often been adduced in evidence, that not skill but fortune plumed his ambitious wing; a proceeding indeed most consonant to the nature of man; for it is hard to avow inferiority, by attributing an action so stupendous to superior genius alone. A critical scientific examination would be misplaced in a general history, but to notice some of the leading points which involve the general conception will not be irrelevant. The choice of the line of attack has been justified by the English engineers, as that requiring least expenditure of means and time; but this has by the French engineer been denied. Colonel Lamarre affirms that the front next the castle was the one least susceptible of defence; because it had neither ravelin nor ditch to protect it, had fewer flanks, and offered no facility of retrenching behind it; a view which is confirmed by Phillipon, who being the best judge of his own weak points, did for many days imagine that this front was the true object of the allies’ approaches. But Lamarre advances a far more interesting question, when he affirms that the English general might have carried Badajos by escalade and storm, on the first night of the siege, with less difficulty than he experienced on the 7th of April. On that night, he says, the defences were not so complete, that the garrison was less prepared, and the surprise would have availed somewhat; whereas at the second period the breaches were the strongest part of the town, and as no other advantage had been gained by the besiegers, the chances were in favour of the first period.

This reasoning appears sound, yet the fact is one which belongs, not to the rules but the secrets of the art, and they are only in the keeping of great captains. That the breaches were impregnable has indeed been denied by the English engineers. Colonel Jones affirms that the centre breach had not the slightest interior retrenchment, and that the sword-blades in the Trinidad, might have been overturned by the rush of a dense mass of troops. This opinion is quite at variance with that of the officers and men engaged; it is certain also that all the breaches were protected by the sword-blades, and if the centre breach was not retrenched, it was rendered very difficult of approach by the deep holes digged in front, and it was more powerfully swept by flank fire than the others were. It is also a mistake to suppose that no dense rush was made at the great breach. Engineers intent upon their own art sometimes calculate on men as they do on blocks of stone or timber, nevertheless where the bullet strikes the man will fall. The sword-blades were fitted into ponderous beams, and these last, chained together, were let deep into the ground; how then was it possible for men to drag, or push them from their places, when behind them stood resolute men, whose fire swept the foremost ranks away? This fire could not be returned by the soldiers engaged in removing the obstacles, nor by those in rear, because, from the slope of the breach, they could only see their own comrades of the front ranks; and then the dead bodies, and the struggling wounded men, and still more the spiked planks, rendered a simultaneous exertion impossible. The breaches were impregnable!

And why was all this striving in blood against insurmountable difficulties? Why were men sent thus to slaughter, when the application of a just science would have rendered the operation comparatively easy? Because the English ministers, so ready to plunge into war, were quite ignorant of its exigencies; because the English people are warlike without being military, and under the pretence of maintaining a liberty which they do not possess, oppose in peace all useful martial establishments. Expatiating in their schools and colleges, upon Roman discipline and Roman valour, they are heedless of Roman institutions; they desire like that ancient republic, to be free at home and conquerors abroad, but start at perfecting their military system, as a thing incompatible with a constitution, which they yet suffer to be violated by every minister who trembles at the exposure of corruption. In the beginning of each war, England has to seek in blood for the knowledge necessary to insure success, and like the fiend’s progress toward Eden, her conquering course is through chaos followed by death!