CHAPTER V.
News of the French—Castilian Costume—Equipment of the Army—Melancholy Court-martial Case—Wellington in the Battle of Fuentes d’Onore—The Chances of War—Anecdotes of Wellington—His Opinions of the War—The New Mutiny Act—Wellington on “Vetus”—General Murray—Advance of the French.Head-quarters, Frenada, April 12, 1813.
News of the French—Castilian Costume—Equipment of the Army—Melancholy Court-martial Case—Wellington in the Battle of Fuentes d’Onore—The Chances of War—Anecdotes of Wellington—His Opinions of the War—The New Mutiny Act—Wellington on “Vetus”—General Murray—Advance of the French.
Head-quarters, Frenada, April 12, 1813.
My dear M——,
Fromwhat I hear, if we could only get grass, Lord Wellington would move about the second week in May. There is no immediate prospect of this, as you will perceive, when I tell you that the Military Secretary has sent all his horses nearly a hundred miles off for grass.
The news here is, that some more of the French, about twenty men from every regiment, are ordered home. Some, but I believe no great number hitherto, are actually gone: and about three or four thousand conscripts are supposed to have arrived in Spain to fill up the vacancies of the old soldiers removed. Head-quarters will not now probably move until we march; and, from report, we shall not go to Guinaldo, but stay here quietly until the army is drawn up around us, ready to move.
The clergy, both here and in Spain, are in general, I understand, fortunately of the same opinion as to the Pope’s signing the Concordat, as you say the emigrants are; that he did it from compulsion, or that a different instrument was substituted for his signature. It was feared that artful plan would have assisted Bonaparte in Spain.
I hear the same accounts of the state of commerce at Lisbon as George sends from London. Old Colonel Arentschild here says, “She (meaning England) will make enough in Germany, by trade, to enable her, in the first six months, to carry on the war for two years, if necessary.” I fear the news in the papers concerning the Prince of Orange was rather premature. He states, that he has hitherto had no offer except from the Continent, nor heard anything from the newspaper. It will prove a prophecy, I hope, instead of a fact. He seems a very amiable, deserving youth, is liked by every one, and has had the greatest of all advantages for a young prince, that of being educated in a great measure with persons who have behaved to him as if he were their equal. So, indeed, he is treated now; except that he has a little more respect paid to him, which I believe is really felt, for he lives nearly on terms of equality with Lord Fitzroy Somerset, Lord March, Colonel G——, &c., and is quite one of the set, and is little or no restraint to any one. I met him, two days ago, scrambling down on the banks of the Coa, three miles off, by himself on foot. He must just now have some interesting subjects for contemplation, and I have no doubt some very flattering visions pass through his brain.
I am looking so much better than when I arrived at head-quarters, that Lord Wellington and several others think I am an exception to the general rule, and that the climate here agrees with me. Lord Wellington says he has had so many ill and dead since he has been here, that he does not like to think of it; many, like General Hulse, &c., whose loss he feels in every way. He says now, he is always ready to let every one go home when first he complains, and is disposed to tell every one who looks ill to be off.
I have just seen some very handsome specimens of the Castilian dresses, male and female, of the higher classesof rich peasantry, made I believe, by a tailor from Salamanca. The three female dresses Lord Wellington means to give to his nieces for masquerades; they are covered with work—embroidery, lace, and gold; he gives two thousand dollars for them. The man’s dress was for Lord March, and is certainly most becoming to almost every one.
I must now go and consider the new intended Bill to punish our offenders here, which Lord Beresford has sent for Lord Wellington to consult him upon it, and he has sent it to me—the draught of the intended Act I mean; and as every one makes some observation, I must make a few also. So, for the present, adieu.
I never told you that some of our military great boys here got very tipsy on the commemoration of the fall of Badajoz, and went to a poorJuge de Fores, that is a Portugal law magistrate, who was on a visit, and poured a bottle of blacking partly in his mouth, and partly over him, at twelve at night; and then made him dress, and go and help break poor C——’s only pane of glass, and upset his bed, as he had retired. Soldiers, lawyers, and all, I see, are boys at times alike.
April 13th.—Much too hot for hunting I should think; but all the sportsmen are out. Lord Wellington has not got good horses to be idle; he works them well. Besides all the hunting, &c., the day before yesterday, after doing business until twelve o’clock, off he went by himself, without saying a word to any one, across to Ciudad Rodrigo, seventeen miles off, inspected all the works, and was back again here in five hours and a half to dinner. He says that they are now going on very well there, and seems to be a little anxious about his own town. I suspect when we do move that we shall get on fast, for Lord Wellington will like to pass the Douro before the French know his plans.
Wednesday, April 14th, Post-day.—This will be but astupid packet, as I have no news or events here to communicate. General Castanos arrived here yesterday in a great lumbering carriage, with eight mules and ropes from Cadiz, on his way to his division. He called here for instructions.
We have had in my own line another murder: a private grenadier of the Buffs shot his officer, on their private parade at Placencia, in the second division, from the window of his quarter, just opposite to that of the officer, and just as he came out to the men, who were all there. The officer was Lieutenant Annesley. The grenadier wounded a sergeant at the same time, and was instantly secured. No quarrel or disagreement was known, but he said that he was satisfied he had killed his enemy, and the day before, when another man committed suicide, he said, “What a fool, not to kill his enemy first, if he had one!” The officer is well spoken of. The conduct of the grenadier resembles madness more than anything else, yet they say he was not mad; I have just sent out a charge against him, and an order for his trial.
Our own army is now quite clothed, I believe. I fear that the Portuguese are only in the middle of theirs, and will not have finished these three weeks. You have no notion what there is to be done before an army like ours is fit to move in such a country as this. We have been three months getting up these clothes from Lisbon for our men; the tents have not yet arrived for head-quarters, and some say that only the army are to use them. I suppose, however, that we must carry them.
Lord Tweeddale continues here as an amateur, and will probably advance with us. When we march I may not be able to write so often, as our time will be much occupied, and pen and ink will not be always at hand. An order has just now come out to pay everything up tothe 24th of December, that the officers may have a little money to prepare for the march.
Head-Quarters, Frenada, April 17th, 1813.—The corn looks very ill about this place, very thin, very yellow, and indeed positively very bad crops. Whether this is, however, also only comparatively bad as to other years I cannot say; it would appear to be so to some extent. The soil is here very poor, and I suspect the harvest is never very abundant. Several parts of Spain have this year suffered much from the want of rain, and the very early heat of the weather; Estremadura in particular: where the sun has been very powerful, everything has been burnt up. My authority for this is General O’Donoghue.
In my own department I have another rather melancholy story. Mr. M——, a clerk in the commissariat department, had been guilty of fraud and embezzlement of stores (some pork, rice, and milk), to no great amount, as far as I could prove under 20l.; but it was sold out of the store at Galigas, in a neighbouring village. By Lord Wellington’s orders I made out a charge against M——, and sent it to him at Coimbra, with an order from the Commissary for him to attend under close arrest at Cea to take his trial, as the witnesses were near Galigas. Soon after the receipt of this letter and order he shot himself, and has thus put an end to the whole business. He was well connected in England, it is said, has respectable friends, and was in a good situation there. A woman with whom he lived here, I believe, was the cause of the whole. When he turned her off she stirred up the witnesses against him, and was the cause of its being made known to Sir R. Kennedy, and by his means to Lord Wellington, when of course a prosecution was inevitable. By the Mutiny Act he was liable to transportation for life, fine, imprisonment, or pillory: and he could not stand the disgrace. He partly admitted the charge, but pleadedsickness and distress. It was unfortunate that the discovery fell on such a subject, for it was, I believe, the first falling off from general good conduct.
I have now got a Court-martial in the fourth division, the only one which has been hitherto free, to sit near Escalpaon, and to try three fellows for going out at night and stealing seven sheep, keeping sentry as a guard over the two shepherds, whilst they skinned the sheep and divided the meat; two other men, of better characters, were with them, and they are therefore to be admitted as witnesses against the three. The Court at Coimbra has suffered the two worst fellows to escape almost with twelve hundred lashes; they ought to have been hung, for they are desperate fellows, both Irishmen. They have been most mutinous and insolent whilst under trial, and one of them, a few days since, said he did not know whether he was to be hung or flogged this time, but if the latter, he would take care next time that there should be no witnesses to tell of what he had done.
Lord Wellington said at dinner the day before yesterday, “We must move by the end of the first week in May, that’s positive.” And then spoke sharply to Colonel F—— of the artillery, because the artillery was not arrived. The Colonel coolly replied, “My lord, I do not think the artillery have been, or will be, the cause of your lordship staying at Frenada. Transport is the great difficulty—animals are so scarce. The Portuguese make much money, but are afraid of spending it, or getting or breeding animals for fear of their being seized or embargoed.” An engineer has been appointed and sent to each division, and a messenger or Spanish courier (who arrived three days since in four days from Cadiz post), was last night sent post round through Seville to Alicant. Something, therefore, is in agitation, and all this looks like preparation for moving. He expected to arrive at Alicant in eight days at furthest, if not in seven.
Lord Wellington the other day was again talking of the battle of Fuentes d’Onore. He said that he was obliged to ride hard to escape, and thought at one time, as he was on a slow horse, that he should have been taken. The whole of head-quarters, general and all, he added, English dragoons and French dragoons, were all galloping away together across the plain, and he more than once saw a French dragoon in a green coat within twenty yards of him. One Frenchman got quite past them all, and they could not knock him off his horse. At last they caught his bridle and stopped him.
21st April.—We sup early (as you call your late dinners) here, and are as smart as you are in England in that respect. At present half-past seven is the hour. We cannot change this hour till Lord Wellington does, for business is now going on till six. We also beat the most fashionable in London in one respect, for we have no female society at all here. There is one lady here, Mrs. S——, and that is all the English we see, once in a week perhaps; and then the men preponderate so that the tone of the society is quite male. There is one Portuguese lady, niece to the Capitan Mor here, or principal resident inhabitant: but she is ugly, and said to be perfumed too strongly with oily salt fish. She is no favourite, and is very little noticed. Her little uncle hunts with Lord Wellington on a little country pony, and does wonders in that way; he seems an active little Portuguese.
Lieutenant-Colonel W——, in the Adjutant-general’s Department here, who was ill when I joined, has now returned. He has had some curious adventures in this country. He once fell in, accompanied by two dragoons, with a small party of French, close to their main body, who were attending some baggage. He, his men consenting, attacked the French, beat them off, plundered their baggage, and brought off the best mule. The latter he kept himself, and has it here now, and the twosoldiers took the money, &c. On another occasion, he was riding quietly with Captain D——, of the same department, on the advance from the lines at Torres Vedras on the retreat of Massena. They were quietly jogging on, and were about to enter a place intended to be English head-quarters that day. When close to it, they found the French were still there in force, and saw three French dragoons close upon them, who, however, did not see them. They resolved to attack by surprise. They knocked two off from their horses, and attacked the third; he got away and they pursued him. In the mean time the other two set off. It ended, however, in W—— and D—— securing one dragoon horse, and some other booty, with which they got safely away. Soon after this Lieutenant-Colonel W—— was himself taken prisoner at Sabugal, when the French advanced during the siege of Badajoz. He was then mounted on this very dragoon horse, which he had kept as booty; the horse was known by the French when he was carried in. He was asked how he came by the horse? He said he bought it of a soldier; and as the three Frenchmen had reported that they had been attacked by a “dozen men in buckram,” and had said nothing of two officers, it all went off well, and he kept their secret and his own. He refused to give his parole, and was therefore ill fed, and kept prisoner with privates, and treated like the rest, except that they let him ride Dragon, as he had christened his horse.
Near Salamanca, a Spanish friend to whom he had been kind came to offer his services to him: “Only get me a new pair of very sharp rowels to my spurs,” said he, “that is all I want.” This was done, and on the next day, the party, a whole French column of infantry, marched on at daybreak about seven. Just near the end of the wood, near Salamanca, in a wide open part of the road, he observed that most of the French horsemen were dismounted; so turning about, he used his new rowelsstrongly, got the start of them in some way, and was off. He galloped till he heard no one behind him. At first there was a shout of “Le Mayo, le Mayo,” and some pursued; he then crossed another road where another French party was, got round by the mountains, reached, I think, Tamones by eleven that night, and to Fuentes d’Onore next day safely. The French had fed their horses in the fields at night on grass, and were soon blown. He had refused to suffer his horse to leave him, and gave him only a little bran, yet though his horse was a slow one too, he thus got safely off. He has since sold the horse. Lord Wellington asked him “Why?” He said, “Because, my lord, I was very near being taken again on him when with your lordship at the battle of Fuentes d’Onore, and that would be awkward, as the horse is known by the French.” He seems an odd character.
The Commissaries all live here exceedingly well, the Lord knows how out of their pay; and that ought to be nearly their only advantage.
Frenada, Head-Quarters, April 24, 1813.—Four Generals have arrived—Graham, Fane, Picton, and Oswald: Sir Stapleton Cotton, who has received orders to command the whole cavalry, has, however, not yet arrived, and is much wanted; but Graham and Picton are very good officers.
Lord Wellington, a few days since, said that he hoped the Spaniards were in many respects getting on much better; that there was a numerous body now well clothed at least, and armed and tolerably disciplined; that he was always ordering the drills to go on with spirit, and by perseverance he thought they were much improving; that he never interfered with the mode, but asked what their military rules and laws were, and then said, “Well, that is very good; now mind and see that they are put in force, and, remember, it is not I but yourlaw orders this; I have only to see your laws executed, which are very good, and they must be obeyed.” He said, the Staff here seemed well satisfied.
The artillery is what Lord Wellington rails at most. They cannot get on so well as he thinks they ought, or at least as he wants them to do. I do not mean in particular at this moment, but generally. The officers commanding this part of the army are rather heavy and slow, or, as Lord Wellington said himself one day of a late commander, “I took care to let him feel that I thought him very stupid.” “That must have been,” General Murray said privately, “by telling him so in plain terms, I have no doubt.” Colonel F——, who commanded the artillery at the battle of Salamanca, and who is very well spoken of by every one, but at times, I believe, is slow, was once with Lord Wellington at an audience when things went wrong, and Lord Wellington got irate, who told him pretty nearly that his friend concerning whom he was inquiring “might go to h—.” Colonel F—— came muttering out, “I’ll go, Sir, to the Quarter-Master-general for a route,” which Lord Wellington heard, and laughed at well.
General Murray says that on hunting-days he could get almost anything done, for Lord Wellington stands whip in hand ready to start, and soon despatches all business. Some of the Generals, Lord Wellington observed one day, used to come and hunt and then get on business, and get him to answer things in a hasty way, which he did not intend, but which they acted upon. “Oh, d—— them,” said he, “I won’t speak to them again when we are hunting.” Colonel F——’s friend on his route to his destination would have found plenty of fuel but less green forage than we have here.
By all accounts the first day after we were in Badajoz, the scene was very shocking in every way. Nothing but dead and wounded on all sides, anddrunkenness and plunder in all directions. Even Lord Wellington, when in the street with his staff, was followed by drunken soldiers, continually firing feux-de-joie over his head with ball-cartridges, and never thinking where the balls went.
The Portuguese Government have got bolder, and have tried some of our people by their laws, when caught in the act, and have sent two or three of them to the coast of Africa. If this were generally known, it would do more good, I believe, than our flogging. Lord Wellington said formerly, that their government always declined trying our people themselves, but now they generally accepted the offer when made. Lieutenant K——, of the Guards, who was tried and acquitted last week of ordering a sentry to fire and killing a native, was very much alarmed lest the Portuguese should try him, as it was at first agreed. It was a hasty act on his part, but there was a slight riot, and I think in law he was properly acquitted, for he was struck with a stone by some one in the mob which was collected.
My cases are now rather increasing again, I think, and will probably continue until we march. I have had two very blackguard officers to try in the Royal Drivers’ corps. Sheep-stealing has now succeeded to pig-shooting, as pork is out of season. The horses are now like mad when turned out, and are scampering all over the country.
I had a long conversation with Lord Wellington yesterday. After discussing our business up and down the market-place, he said that “the want of rain began to be very alarming; but that as soon as the pontoons arrived he would be off. The heavy artillery have started two or three days since from Castello Branco, and will be here by the 31st. The pontoons are stuck somewhere on the road.” He discussed the war here, and in the North, with me: observing that, “a country ought to think well before it undertook to do what Spain did; that, certainly,Spain and Portugal were the fittest places to try the experiment of a battle for the mere soil, because in general there was nothing else in the country much worth fighting for, or which could be much damaged.”
“As, for instance,” he added, “what is this village worth? burn it, and a few hundreds would make it as good as ever with a little labour; but now,” he continued, “he believed that a great portion of the Spaniards began to be very anxious to bring the business to a close; they had rather that we should beat out the French and be off, but, next to that, they had sooner the French beat us out, and had quiet possession, than that such a war as that of the last three years should be continued.” He said “he thought the Cortes were going on ill; that they were unpopular, knew it, and did not know how to set about becoming otherwise; that he disapproved of their meddling with the royal feudal tithes, or church property, and particularly with the elections of the next assembly, with which he thought they had nothing to do. They have declared the elections of one district all void, from some informality, and as the new elections have run much upon priests, they have been trying to make these void, as being within the clause concerning placemen in their constitution—‘that no placeman was to be elected for his own district.’ However,” he continued, “in the present state of things all the real and urgent business, and what is now the most material, namely, all relating to the army and the war, is done here, at Frenada, and let them squabble at Cadiz; if they will leave us alone, I don’t care. Portugal is for some time quite safe and out of the scrape, and if things go on well I think Spain will be out of the scrape also.” “But,” he added, “he should be almost sorry to see such a war as this has been carried on all over Germany, where there is so much to destroy, and to be lost.”
In spite of the poverty of the country and the difficultyas to obtaining bullocks, we have somehow or other collected one thousand here to begin the campaign with: I hear one hundred and fifty fine ones for the artillery.
April 26th.—I am kept going to the last minute. A number of new cases are come in, and I am very busy again; the more so, as the time is so short, and so uncertain when all my Courts are to break up. I cannot get below a dozen cases in hand, for new ones arise faster than I try the old ones.
I have just heard from Coimbra, that one Court-martial is broken up by a division of cavalry moving down to Oporto. I do not quite understand this, but conclude that they will pass the river somewhere below, and so march through the Tras os Montes, and join us again on the other side of the Douro, and have a good untouched country to advance through—otherwise this does not look like a march. No one knows, however, and probably I know as much as the Adjutant-General. I must now write to Lord Wellington; this movement at Coimbra has disturbed two of my Coimbra cases very much.
The new Mutiny Act has been sent out to me. There are several changes, one I see which I suggested; but the business is very much bungled. The Mutiny Act and Articles of War are now at variance, as the latter have not been altered with the former. By the first, an officer may be tried here by a Court of seven members; by the articles, there must be thirteen.
Some of the fifth division have, I hear, moved across the Douro at Lamego. This confirms the opinion I have given above, especially as D’Urban’s Portuguese cavalry are all north of the Mondego, and have been some time there. This will disturb another of my Courts. Lord Wellington says, that the witnesses must follow and try and catch the Court; but I am no hunter, and shall try to remove the case to another place. I dine with Lord Wellington.
Head-Quarters, Frenada, Saturday May 1st, 1813.—This last week I have again been very busy, and shall remain so, no doubt, until we move. This will probably be in a week or so, for our wings are in motion. The cavalry round by Oporto, as I mentioned before, and some Portuguese infantry, under Colonel Hamilton, are advancing to Alcantara from near Portalegre and Eloss. We shall soon be drawing together, but head-quarters, I have very little doubt, will be the last to move. We have just got the “Spanish Gazette,” of Seville, with Elio’s letter, stating the victory gained by General Murray near Alicant, and his driving Suchet back with loss, through Bejar and Villana to Fuente Higuera. I conclude you will have heard this in England before this reaches you. We have no English account, but Lord Wellington seems to consider it very good news. He came running into the Military Secretary’s room, where I was yesterday, to communicate this, saying, “Murray has beat Suchet, Fitzroy.” I always expected the fighting would begin in that quarter this campaign. We got also yesterday from Lisbon the almost incredible good news that Austria had agreed to join the Allies with eighty thousand men in Germany, and one hundred thousand in Italy, and that Davoust and Grenier had been again defeated. Lord Wellington seems rather to give credit to all this. Poor Bony will go mad if it should prove all to be true.
A few days since at dinner at Lord Wellington’s, he got upon the subject of “Vetus.” He said, “He thought he knew the author, and that he had been in India—not Mackintosh, as reported here.” He then went on to say, “he did not think much of Vetus’s letters:[3]that many of his facts as to this country were quite without foundation; that neither Vetus, nor the O. P.’s, norLord Wellesley, knew anything about the war here, and what could or could not be done; that he fully believed Government had done all they could; that the men who did come could not have been here sooner, and perhaps had better have come still later; that more cavalry he could not have employed, had he had them at Lisbon, for want of transport for food; that when he advanced formerly to Talavera, he left several thousand men at Lisbon, because he could not supply them had they been with the army; that even now he could not have brought up the Hussar brigade into the field, unless by draughting home the three regiments whose men he lately had sent back, and thus setting at liberty their transport; that the Guards, Life and Blues, he knew of some time since, and sent five months ago to Estremadura to collect mules for their supply; that every two dragoons employed a mule to feed the men and horses, and that all this difficulty in the detail was quite unknown at home. In short, he said, Lord Wellesley knew nothing about the matter, and he had no reason to be dissatisfied with Government at home.” All this made several of us stare. I am told that Lord Wellington was very angry with Lord Wellesley for his resignation, and hardly spoke to any one for some days after he had heard the fact. Lord Paget has just sent up here two of the Hussars, a corporal and a private, to wait as orderlies on my lord the peer; two very fine fellows. This was done out of compliment. They will only be ruined at head-quarters, which is a terrible place for soldiers and servants; over-pay, great idleness, and every third house a vine-house.
I have just read Mrs. M. A. Clark and the Messrs. Fitzgerald’s, &c., which Lord Fitzroy Somerset sent me by desire of Lord Wellington. It is a curious production, and very ingenious as I understand it, merely as a punishment on the Chancellor of the Exchequer for notletting her profit by the Treasury, and, at the same time, a strong inducement to all others in her favour, held over their headsin terrorem, not to be guilty of equal ingratitude; that is, not to neglect making up her deficiencies in cash when a hint has been given them of the necessity.
May 2nd.—Lord Wellington, I hear is to go to-day to General Cole’s division, the fourth, near the Figuiera, above Castello Rodrigo, and near Eschalo. He sends his hounds over the six leagues to-day: they hunt there to-morrow. On Tuesday he is to review the fourth division, and return here to dinner at Frenada afterwards. Lord Wellington said, some days since, he would move on the 5th of May: some of the army may, and will, I have no doubt; but I do not thinkweshall before the 10th. Ho one knows, however; and I dare say no one will know until the day before, when all will be in a bustle. I hope we shall not set out in this weather, however, which continues constant cold, rain, and wind. By watching sharp, I can generally get an hour’s ride dry; but it will be rather dismal work to start on a long march in this wet, and it would, from the state of the roads, knock up the mules too much at first, when I take it they will have far enough to go.
If the news from Austria be true, and General Murray has really beaten Suchet in an English and not merely in a Spanish fashion, the French, when they hear we have crossed the Douro, will probably go at once behind the Ebro, carrying all they can with them that is moveable and worth carriage. At present, however, their plan seems to be, to try to make a stand on the Douro first. They are evidently receding gradually from Madrid.
Later.—I have just heard that part of my gossip of head-quarters is not correct. Lord Wellington has got a cold, and has determined not to go to General Cole to-day, though the weather has now cleared up.
May 3rd, Monday.—Lord Wellington is rather worse to-day, I hear, and does not leave Frenada. I hope his review will be quite put off. He has, I believe, only a bad cold. We have still no further news from Alicant: at Cadiz they had only seen the same account that we have. Mr. Wellesley says that the people were in high spirits about it there, though I suspect that some of the Spaniards did not behave well. The allied loss is reported to be nine hundred, that of the French at two thousand. If we could kill off at this rate, and make the Spaniards bear a fair share, this would do very well. I have since heard from Colonel C—— that it is supposed Elio’s troops behaved ill, and threw away their arms. Elio’s corps had received orders not to fight, but to unite with General Murray: he was just about to do so, and part of his corps was on his left, but too far distant, and gave way when attacked. The orders were, for all the corps, Elio’s, Del Parque’s, &c., to unite with General Murray without a battle. General Murray will scarcely be able to do much (if he has beat Suchet) with his small force, if he cannot trust the Spaniards. I hope, however, Whittingham’s corps has behaved well.
May 4th, Tuesday.—Lord Wellington has just got eight of the Prince Regent’s grey stallions up from Lisbon to draw his carriage on the march: they are small, but showy, little, prancing, round-carcassed animals. They have the same mark as is on my black horse from Machacha; but mine beats them in beauty. To-day they were tried, and not having been for some time, or ever, in harness, or not liking the country so well as Lisbon, they would not for a long time go at all. One reared up and fell backwards twice, clean over, and one got astride the pole. They got on better, however, at last, and did not break the carriage as I expected. Lord Wellington’s six old large mules would do the work much better, though they are not so showy for Spain.
I saw Lord Wellington to-day, he said he was much better; but has apparently a heavy, bad cold.
May 5th.—Here we are, still mum, as I expected; and the reason for it is now said to be that the pontoons are not yet arrived. They left Castello Branco May the 1st only, and, it is said, cannot reach this place before the 9th. Monday the 10th is now talked of; I think, however, it may be still Thursday next, the day after the post-day again, before we stir; most people say, however, Tuesday the 11th; much may depend on news. Of course, Lord Wellington must be very anxious to know the true state of the North of Europe before we start; and the present strong south-west gales are much against our hearing soon; he also wishes to know the exact effect of the fight at Alicant. I dined yesterday at head-quarters, and Lord F. Somerset told me that they had more irregular accounts of the latter business, and that they became less and less satisfactory. It was understood that the Spaniards, when first attacked alone, were charged and quite cut up by the French—muy mal tratado, is the Spanish private account; and one whole regiment, I am told, surrendered. Three regiments are considered to bemis hors de combat. Our army, it appears, did certainly afterwards at last beat back a French partial attack with loss; but our vanguard had been beaten back before, and the loss in our army, English and Sicilians, without Spaniards, was nine hundred. This will not do; still it is to be hoped that Whittingham’s people behaved better.
Lord Wellington dined at table again yesterday, and was much better. I sat next to him on one side and the Prince of Orange on the other, as there happened to be no other grandees there; and we had much conversation. This has happened two or three times lately, when I have been there, and there are few besides his own establishment present. He always calls the two who are on his right and left, and Campbell settles the rest. Lord F.Somerset sent me yesterday a little pamphlet of Lord Wellington’s, containing the account of the Russian retreat—rather a catchpenny, I think; and, though not exceeding the Russian gazettes in the number of French prisoners, adding several rather incredible details, such as the French crawling into the fires like gnats into a candle, without being sensible of their danger, &c.
The French, who had quitted Toledo altogether, have again advanced, and occupied it with much the same force as before, to the great discomfiture of the junta there, who thought the “Esclaves” (as they call them in the account of the Alicant battle) were gone for good and for ever. To-day Lord Wellington keeps the anniversary of the battle of Fuentes d’Onore, and all present at that battle are to dine with him.
5th (Later).—Since writing the above, I have received a case of a deserter from the Isla de Leon. Two years since he deserted to the French, and persuaded others to go with him. As no time is now to be lost, I have drawn the charge and sent the whole off to Lamego for trial directly. My only Court which has as yet moved, or had orders to move, is that at Coimbra, who are cavalry, and are now at Oporto. I have sent Mr. Commissary D——, from Coimbra, there to be tried, for a breach of orders; and a number of witnesses are all gone with him on both sides to Oporto: I only hope they may not, by any sudden order, have all their march for nothing. We have now, since Christmas, tried eighty cases, and there are still ten in hand, besides about thirty which have come to nothing.
FOOTNOTES:[3]If the letters of Vetus were written, as was supposed, by Lord Wellesley, it is quite clear that Lord Wellington was ignorant of the fact.—Ed.
[3]If the letters of Vetus were written, as was supposed, by Lord Wellesley, it is quite clear that Lord Wellington was ignorant of the fact.—Ed.
[3]If the letters of Vetus were written, as was supposed, by Lord Wellesley, it is quite clear that Lord Wellington was ignorant of the fact.—Ed.