CHAPTER XI.
Rejoicings for the Victory—Sufferings of Cole’s Division—Complaints of the French—Statements of a French Prisoner—Decay of Spain—Characteristics of Wellington—His Opinion of Bonaparte—Prospects of a renewal of the Attack—Exchange of Prisoners—Wellington’s Spanish Estate—His opinion of Picton—Disposition of the Army.Head-quarters, Lezaca,August 7, 1813.
Rejoicings for the Victory—Sufferings of Cole’s Division—Complaints of the French—Statements of a French Prisoner—Decay of Spain—Characteristics of Wellington—His Opinion of Bonaparte—Prospects of a renewal of the Attack—Exchange of Prisoners—Wellington’s Spanish Estate—His opinion of Picton—Disposition of the Army.
Head-quarters, Lezaca,August 7, 1813.
My dear M——,
Herewe are still, quiet, andin statu quo anteour last run to Pamplona. I have sent you a long account of all this business with the Prince of Orange’s despatches.
Our cavalry have been moving up, both to St. Estevan, and towards Irun. From the former place, however, for want of forage they begin to retire again. Much are left still round Pamplona, where there is only a Spanish infantry force to watch and invest. They have tried in vain to burn the corn just under the walls of the town, for this partly supplies the garrison. Marshal Beresford is gone for a week to the sea side, for bathing; I conclude, therefore, that nothing is to be immediately undertaken to turn the French out of the remaining hills near this place. I should like to have them clear out in the plains below, for I expect in about three weeks to have them plaguing us again. Something is still in agitation for this purpose, but for the present delayed. We fired, at St. Sebastian, a salute of twenty-one guns for our late victory. The garrison regularly returned twofor every gun fired. They are very well supplied, it is said, and are very impudent. I fear that all our former breaches will now be quite useless, as they are, probably, before this, made the strongest points. Saragossa, or Zaragoza (the fort) has surrendered to Mina with about forty guns, and, it is said, nearly five hundred men; this will be good, if Suchet intends to come that way towards us. I think he is now retreating a little, and perhaps this late business may make him go back quicker.
Lord Wellington was on his bed yesterday, and could scarcely rise from the lumbago; but was in good humour and good spirits. His position near Sorauren and Oricain, or Orquin, was a near-run thing (this was where the last two battles were fought). General Cole was there with the fourth division. In the course of his retreat, Lord Wellington was falling back on him with his staff, saw the importance of the position and galloped over the bridge, and up to General Cole, to form his division, and take up the position at first sight. Pamplona must otherwise have been relieved. The French were so close upon Lord Wellington, that a part of his staff rather behind could not follow him over the bridge, but were cut off by the French, and obliged to find their way round. This position was afterwards strengthened by the third (Picton’s) division, and the Spaniards, and this at least saved the communication with Pamplona. I hope we should in any case have beaten the French at last, but it must have been further back certainly, and probably on the Tolosa road. General Cole’s division has had, on the whole, nearly nine days’ constant fighting and marching. It is terribly cut up in consequence.
The French vow vengeance against the Spaniards. An officer, prisoner here, told me yesterday, that the Spaniards had always complained of the French, and often with reason; but if they came again as he expected, the French were resolved to show them the difference,and let them have some reason to complain of them in earnest. He said, that France had lost nearly four hundred thousand men in Spain, in the war, and much more than half from sickness and unfair means, assassination, and treachery. He said there was not a family in France which had not put on mourning for this Spanish war, and yet scarcely any of the Spaniards had fought them like men. He said the notion the French had was that in the general peace which was expected, England and France would make arrangements to divide the best part of Spain between them, and that we should keep Cadiz, Carthagena, and all the useful maritime parts, and leave them to the Ebro. He smiled much at my disowning any such honest and honourable intentions on our part. He told me that the French armies had suffered more in theirmoralehere in the last campaign, than by their Russian losses, for every Frenchman laid the latter disasters entirely to climate, and was satisfied he still could conquer a Russian as formerly; but here, the troops were fairly beaten, and in general would not stand. Only two brigades, he said, behaved really well at Vittoria, and Jourdan was sent to Paris under arrest for his conduct. As to the money, baggage, &c., they behaved much better on the 18th of July.
He also told me that not even an English or Spanish officer, in the best of times, had ever been so well treated as the French were when they first came here. He appeared not at all to feel how much worse this made their conduct appear since. This was drawn out by my telling him that Bonaparte had contrived now to make the French detested, almost by every nation in Europe, and that power was all he had to rely upon. The part Bernadotte had taken the French officers seem not to have known, so much are they kept in the dark about every thing. The Frenchman also said, that had it not been for the jealousies of the Guerillas, they might, byacting in concert (which they never would do), have sometimes almost annihilated whole French divisions, and that the French could scarcely have kept their ground some time since; but by local and individual jealousies the finest opportunities were lost. He considered that the good or bad behaviour of an army all depended on their having pay and food; or, on the contrary, the want of both; and I believe so much: that he rightly considered that the French discipline was the best when they had both, but that not being here ever the case, plunder was the consequence. “But why come here at all?” quoth I. “L’Empereur le veut,” was the answer, “and we as soldiers have only to obey.” “Try and enter France,” said he, “and you will soon see how the people feel, and whether your stories of a readiness to revolt, and dissatisfaction are true. So far from it, that there has been considerable zeal shown every where in replacing the Emperor’s Russian losses.” The French think there must be war, and therefore the further from home the better. We have heard before you, by French papers, of the extension of the armistice in the North. This is bad for the campaign here.
The English reviewers and others may say what they please as to Spain not having been on the decline during the last century. It has at least stood still when almost every other country in Europe made rapid advances in everything. In Spain and Portugal, no town is now, or has been lately, on the increase; but several have manifestly diminished. The decay of houses is seldom made good, even on the same ground, by new ones; I do not recollect to have observed, in the whole country, four new houses building, notwithstanding the thousands destroyed of late; nor does this seem owing to the events of the last five years and the present times, for you see no houses commenced before that time, and left unfinished, at least extremely few. In France, almostevery large place had its new town as in England, only in a less degree, and evident marks of new buildings, &c., stopped by the Revolution. In Spain there are no appearances of new towns at all, nor of parts of towns, or scarcely even of houses, or unfinished buildings stopped by the present confusion—some in Vittoria, from French excitement I believe, but nothing to speak of. The churches are every where on a large and expensive scale; a few modern, but in general they are old. The Spanish towns have nearly all the appearance of what we should take to be decayed manufacturing towns. The inhabitants appear to have been asleep as to the rest of the world, and not to have made any progress whilst others made great advances. This is a sort of decline. There can have been little demand for manufactures, for the same few chairs and tables seem to have been in use these fifty or hundred years. Whitewashing and new placing the tiles seem the only repairs of the houses.
Yet, I think many districts seem to have been uncommonly happy and comfortable before this war—large tight houses, abundance of food, good clothes, cleanly habits, a general equality of rank; no rich among them at all; no very poor; and no manufactures. Almost every man could make what he wanted for his farm, and a shoemaker, a tailor, and a farrier, were nearly the only tradesmen, except farmers, in work. Occasional pedlars supplied the other wants of a people who had but few. Such must have been the independent, happy state of many large districts away from the influence of the corruptions of the large towns, where all the idle, lazy, pauper nobility lived: they were alike free from the effects of the misgovernment and oppressive conduct of their rulers. Other districts certainly were very different, and more like the dirty and ill-provided Portuguese. In Portugal, the higher classes seem, I think, to have been generally better off, and to have enjoyedthemselves more in their quintas, or villas, and the poor to have been worse off. There are none of the districts in Portugal such as I have described in Spain.
I have just met General Cole, who commanded the fourth division; he is quite knocked up. He says that his division alone have one hundred and four officers killed and wounded.
Lezaca, 8th August.—Yesterday I rode up to the hill at the point of our position above Bera, from whence you see Bayonne. I stood on the top until it was nearly dark, and returned down the mountains by moonlight. The French fires were very numerous, and were burning all over the sides of a tremendous hill, which they still occupy opposite to our position. I passed the boundary stone, and got half-a-mile into France, to the highest summit of the rock, where the outlying picket is. I saw the French relieve their pickets, heard their drums as plainly as ours, saw the men at work at a redoubt to oppose us if we should advance, and, lastly, saw five thousand Spaniards come up to occupy the ground in the place of our light division, &c., who were ordered to go elsewhere. These were O’Donnell’s regiments; they were thin in numbers. A brigade, nominally three thousand, mustered eighteen hundred, but were well-dressed and good-looking men. I only hope they will fight—at least that they do not steal as adroitly as Longa’s people. We have had the latter near this place, and nothing is safe at all from their fingers—from a horse or mule down to a bit of biscuit. In my letter from Vittoria, I told you that the French as an army had escaped, and that we should hear of them again in a month. So it proved; and so I think it will be probably again, unless the two places surrender to us in a few weeks.
This small, dirty place, Lezaca, is a curious scene of bustle just now; crowded with Spanish fugitives—thehead-quarters no small body, with all our stragglers and those of Longa’s, who are more numerous (he having a quarter here now, and looking like an English butcher in a handsome hussar dress), with abundance of Spanish and Portuguese officers (for both troops are near), as well as with English, with wounded and prisoners passing, with mules and muleteers innumerable, besides all the country people who come here to turn all they have got into money. Noises of all sorts; thrashing all going on in the rooms up stairs; the corn then made into bread and sold in one corner; “aguardente” being cried all about; lemonade (that is, dirty water and dark-brown sugar) the same; here a large pig being killed in the street, with its usual music on such occasions; another near it with a straw fire singeing it, and then a number of women cutting up and selling pieces of other pigs killed a few hours before. Suttlers and natives with their Don Quixote wineskins all about, large pigskins, and small ditto, and middling ditto, all pouring out wine to our half-boozy, weary soldiers; bad apples and pears, gourds for soup, sour plums, &c., all offered for sale at the same moment. Perpetual quarrels take place about payment for these things between the soldiers of the three allied nations and the avaricious and unreasonable civilian natives; mostly, however, between Spaniards and Spaniards. The animals eating green Indian corn almost against every house here and in the churchyard, which contains four tents, from the want of stables and of quarters. Not the least curious or noisy in this confusion, are about fifteen men and women with fresh butter 4s.the pound, who are come from near St. Andero and beyond it—a stout race dressed in a curious, peculiar manner, who contrive to bring butter on their heads in baskets for above a fortnight together, and sell it at last in a state that I am very glad to eat it for breakfast for ten days after it arrives. It forms a sort of very mild cream cheese, in fact.
Head-Quarters, Lezaca, August 9th.—You ask me if Lord Wellington has recollected —— with regard? He seems to have had a great opinion of him, but scarcely has ever mentioned him to me. In truth, I think Lord Wellington has an active, busy mind, always looking to the future, and is so used to lose a useful man, that as soon as gone he seldom thinks more of him. He would be always, no doubt, ready to serve any one who had been about him, or the friend of a deceased friend, but he seems not to think much about you when once out of the way. He has too much of everything and everybody always in his way, to think much of the absent. He said the other day, that he had great advantages now over every other General. He could do what others dare not attempt; and he got the confidence of all the three allied powers, so that what he said or ordered was, right or wrong, always thought right. “And it is the same,” said he, “with the troops. When I come myself, the soldiers think what they have to do the most important, since I am there, and that all will depend on their exertions. Of course, these are increased in proportion, and they will do for me what perhaps no one else can make them do.” He said, “he had several of the advantages possessed by Bonaparte, in regard to his freedom of action and power of risking, without being constantly called to account: Bonaparte was quite free from all inquiry, and that he himself was in fact very much so. The other advantages which Bonaparte possessed, and of which he made so much use,” Lord Wellington said, “was his full latitude of lying;that, if so disposed,” he said, “he could not do.”
You ask about my health—I think this hole in the mountains unwholesome: the place is so full, and without drainage; the air heavy and oppressive; it is like Devonshire, warm moisture constantly. I long to be on the mountains, to get air and braced up. It has rained nearly all the last twenty-four hours.
August 10th.—I have just seen Lord Wellington, about some more than usually important business: he is better, but not well. He has given me an immense bundle of English and Spanish papers to peruse and examine. The enclosed plan may help you a little to understand theGazette, and my letter; remember it is only my hasty personal sketch in pen and ink, on no scale, and taken from no regular document.
11th, Post-day.—I worked very hard all yesterday, and could not get through Lord Wellington’s papers. I am still at work at the last part of them: a Spanish narrative of all the Spanish operations of a Spanish army for a month, by their General Copons. It consists of sixty-four sides of foolscap in a Spanish hand. There is nothing new. Lord Wellington will give a dinner to-morrow, in honour of the Prince Regent’s birthday, to all the heads of departments, to which I am invited. There are reports of the French moving already, but I believe all lies as yet. Do not be too sanguine about Suchet. He may retire, but will hardly be forced out of the country, for there are forty thousand French on that side of Spain. The Spanish Government have given Lord Wellington a handsome royal estate near Granada; he told me this yesterday.
Head-Quarters, Lezaca, August 13th, 1813.—Here I am, and very busy still, and with no events to communicate. All is now quiet for the present, as at Frenada, though this cannot last long. Having the paper by me, however, I determined to place this letter upon the stocks, against the next post-day.
Yesterday I dined at Lord Wellington’s, with a party of thirty-six, to keep the Prince Regent’s birthday. Eight mules had arrived in the morning with prog and wines from Bilboa, and we had therefore a good feast, and some very good claret of Majoribanks and Paxton. The party was very dull, though many grandees werepresent—Castanos, O’Donnell, the General of the army of the reserve (the best Spaniards I have seen, and now on the hill above us, with something like a Commissariat, &c.), their aides-de-camp, &c., Generals Cole, Anson, Murray, Pakenham, &c. Two bands were in attendance those of the Fusiliers and the 7th. Fuento, the Spanish Commissary, gave us “God save the King,” and Lord Wellington’s favourite, “Ah Marmont, onde va Marmont?” but it was very hot and stupid; every one here, in fact, is fagged, and half done up. Lord Wellington could scarcely rise when he sat down, or sit down when he rose, from lumbago, and was in great pain, but is much better; all around him looked pale and worn. I think, however, we shall be up to another brush again soon.
We are soon about to begin again at St. Sebastian; but it is to be feared that it will be hard and bloody work, unless some piece of good luck should arise in our favour.
Later.—I have just been to Lord Wellington, with the result of my labours, which have amused him much, and which he thinks I cannot be correct in, as to facts; or if so, the whole, he concurs with me, is most extraordinary. He has now got the papers and my statement to examine. It is not, in my opinion, the Spanish General who was to blame; I must not explain more at present; he seemed pleased, and asked me to dinner again to-day. We have a stray paper to the 4th, which has set us all agog; but I have only heard the news concerning Lord Aberdeen, and it does not seem quite certain that there is to be an ambassador from England to the Congress. The French nation, or rather the news through France, is I hear all for peace, and the Rhine and the Pyrenees are to be the boundaries, Jerome King of Holland, and Joseph King of Italy; this is only French rumour.
I am told that Soult says he will be here the day after to-morrow, the 15th, and has two bridges ready near Irun, to come on our left; he would only come there, for I think we should be able to do something. We are well up for an attack there; four hours would put the divisions here on that flank, Spaniards, &c.
The 14th.—We had last night a little firing, but I believe it was only the Spaniards. The latter and the French fire at each other at every opportunity, and when neighbours, are never at peace. Our sentries and the French, on the contrary, are within one hundred yards of each other, and are relieved regularly without the least molestation on either side. This is the way. Unless an attack is to be made, what is gained by killing a poor sentry? Our new brigade is not yet at Passages, although expected for this fortnight. Some reinforcements have, however, come up, and the brigade of Guards, which were left behind, have, by easy marches from Oporto, now joined us—about fifteen hundred out of the three thousand who came out at that unlucky time last year. The French have also reinforcements, and must in honour do something if the two places hold out. The French gentleman who came over to us near Pamplona fourteen days since, dined at Lord Wellington’s yesterday, and talked away. He seems clever, and, like every Frenchman, professed to know everything—the secret history of everybody and of every event. He calls Bonaparteun tigre, &c. I cannot say that I like him much, and would not trust him; but I am not much afraid of Lord Wellington doing so. Lord Wellington told him the following fact, concerning the exchange of prisoners in this country. He said that Massena once agreed to exchange three hussar officers and one hundred and twenty men, rank for rank, and when he had got his own three officers and the men, sent back only twenty soldiers, and the rest countrymenand Portuguese militiamen, and three officers of militia scarcely embodied. Lord Wellington vowed never to trust his honour again, and in every proposal always excepts Massena. Indeed he said he was so little inclined now from experience to trust any of them, that a short time since, when an exchange was proposed, he said, “Yes; but first name the officers and men you offer, and their regiments, ages, &c., and then I will treat, but I will not have Spanish peasants for French soldiers.” To this they sent no answer.
Lord Wellington also tells them, that until our travellers, civilians, &c., who were detained are released, he can never listen to non-combatant pleas. All must be exchanged; but he is very liberal. He also said Soult once complained that six of our officers had escaped from their guard near Oporto, on that retreat, and had committed a breach of honour; but that he (Lord Wellington) having inquired into it, found they were placed in confinement under a guard, and their parole not relied upon, and that they had got the better of their guard. Lord Wellington, therefore, told the Marshal that the parole being abandoned by the imprisonment, the point of honour was gone; and that there were two ways of prisoners and their guards separating, and that he believed the guard had run away from their prisoners, not the prisoners from their guard. To this also he had no answer.
Lord Wellington also talked of Grant’s case, who lately got away from Paris. Lord Wellington had advised him not to give his parole in Spain, and had provided persons to rescue him in several places on the march to France. They offered this to Grant in consequence, but the offer was from honour declined, as the parole had been given and acted upon. The moment he was in France the French placed him under a guard, and at Bayonne he got away from them and went toParis, remained there nine months, and got to England at last. Lord Wellington yesterday was excessively stiff and sore, but in high spirits. He seems to have a notion that the Continent will make a peace, and leave us and the Spaniards in the lurch, and I believe this prevents any very forward movements here on his part, for the French would then soon come down upon us with decidedly superior numbers; and if we had quite passed these mountains a hasty retreat back through them would not be a very easy or agreeable manœuvre.
I rode last night to Bera or Vera, where our outposts are in the valley. The French pickets are in two houses on the hills opposite, a few hundred yards up. Several of the houses about there are destroyed, gutted, and burnt, and most of them deserted. It was only a month ago a pretty little town. Longa had also, since we were here last, burnt two neat farms on the road, and knocked off the parapet of the bridge, and dug a trench across it, for the purpose of annoying the French. We have headed nearly all the green Indian corn in this valley for the horses; it is cut short off, half way, leaving the fruit below; and this is said not to do much harm to the corn. But then we cannot eat our cake and have it also. There will be no dry forage for the animals in autumn and winter. The little wheat straw about these valleys is nearly all eaten already, and much of the wheat and Indian corn itself has been either destroyed or taken by the irregularity of the thousand muleteers around us, in spite of their being occasionally flogged when caught in doing so. The inhabitants will, I fear, be half starved in the winter, unless they migrate, which many will, no doubt, and we must be supplied from other parts if we stay near here. Spain in general will, however, have been released from the supply of, nominally, two hundred thousand French; and as we drove them away before harvest time, most of this will be in the market somewhere,except what has been destroyed on our immediate line of march. Much has been of course trodden down, and from the want of forage and corn our horses have been obliged to take the ripe wheat and eat it—straw, grain, and all—to serve both purposes. This is dangerous food, and if drink is given carelessly, often kills the animal; but otherwise it answers well.
We understand here that it was not until three days after the news of the battle of Vittoria arrived that any one durst inform Bonaparte of it. This last battle will very probably be almost entirely concealed from him. As we are now bothin statu quoas to place, this may perhaps be managed: though the enemy are about fifteen thousand men minus to what they were before the attack at Maya began. From intercepted letters we find that, in reports even to each other, the French lie considerably, or at least misrepresent, for the good of the service, and this will present a good opportunity, as Bonaparte is so far off.
In this little town, or rather village, there are about twelve priests at least, walking about in their shovel hats. These hats would astonish the most orthodox bishop’s chaplain in England, and our coalheaver’s hat is nothing to them. The only fine cloth in the shops here is black, you may guess for whose use.
The estate which the Spanish Government has given to the Marquis of Wellington is, I understand, a very desirable one; and the best proof that it is so, is that it was one which the Prince of Peace had given to himself, and doubtless he chose the best he could find. It is nominally thirty thousand dollars a-year, a castle, I understand, and about a league from Granada, in a fine country.[5]Lord Wellington seems very much pleased with it. He says that he hopes the house is a good one, as he shouldnot like to have to build, and that he hears there is hunting, coursing, fishing, and everything near it. There was a fine wood, but I fear the Prince of Peace cut most of that down. General O’Lalor, who is in a bad state of health, is to have the government of Granada, and will superintend this estate for Lord Wellington. The latter had got the papers concerning it before him when I called a few days since, and said, “This relates to the estate they have given me.”
The 15th.—I have been very ill all night and this morning, but am now rather better, and the doctor tells me I am saved a fever by this bilious attack. We are all most anxious for news from the North, for all must depend in the end upon that, at least in a great measure. Next to General Frost, I think, our General has done the most for the common cause. General Villa Alba, the Spanish Inspector of Cavalry, dined at head-quarters to-day. He is a queer-looking creature, anything but a General in appearance, and much less a cavalry officer. I know, however, nothing of his real character. We now feel the effects of our work through these valleys; for we cannot ride a few miles without the alternate smells of dead horses, dead mules, and dead men. Bonaparte’s birthday has passed over very quietly, except a tremendous triple salvo of all the St. Sebastian’s guns and mortars upon our poor fellows in the trenches at daylight. The garrison are amazingly pert, from their success hitherto; but we have some hopes they will soon want water. Adieu.
The 16th.—Much the same to-day, the attack continuing all night. Cannot think what it is in this country that affects us. The thermometer has never in the shade, in my room, been beyond 72° in this part of Spain. General Sir T. Picton is attacked again with a violent bowel complaint, and is fallen to the rear. He would be a great loss, for he is one of the best here.Lord Wellington, the other day, said, “Why, even General Picton did so-and-so the other day,” as if surprised that he should not have acted quite right.
Our soldiers are quite unaccountable; all is going on right, and they are just now quiet and well fed, yet desertion, and even of British, to the enemy, was scarcely ever more frequent. It was not surprising that one hundred and forty of the Chasseurs Britanniques went off when we were falling back to Pamplona, and, as they thought, probably to Portugal; but that the English soldier should desert, is astonishing and unaccountable. Three went off from pickets together the other night, towards the French, and were all caught, and are to be tried. Several must be hung for this. Two new regiments have at last arrived. I wish the French would come fairly on now, if at all, but every one talks of a general peace. Adieu.
The 17th.—We have this day a strong French report that peace is signed, and that the Pyrenees are to be the boundary of France on this side. Nothing said about England; but even at this rate, we must be off if this prove true. The news you told me of the fifty thousand men, under Soult, you will have seen was tolerably correct; it was intended he should have been here sooner, to prevent the mischief which happened at Vittoria. As soon as the report came that we were threatening to cross the Ebro he was sent off, but he did not allow sufficiently for Lord Wellington’s rapid movements, and was a little too late. It is clear, from many circumstances, as Lord Wellington says, that he intended to drive us back to the Ebro this last push, and that his measures were all taken accordingly; his cavalry, which he brought with him, and which, as regards the country as far as Pamplona, would have been useless, has suffered much from the roads, want of shoes, &c., and had no employment except that of carrying off the wounded.
Our army is now nearly as follows: first and fifth divisions, Oyarzun and St. Sebastian, under Graham; Jeron, with his Spaniards of Gallicia, in their front at Irun; Longa between them and this place, with his diminished Guerillas; here the fourth division and the light division in front, and the Spaniards of O’Donnell the reserve next, on the right of the others, in front; then the seventh division above Echalar, &c.: then the third and sixth in Maya and Roncesvalles Pass, with Spaniards I believe also, and General Hill’s second division behind them in the valley of Bastan, Elisondo, &c.; six thousand Spaniards watching Pamplona, and our cavalry about there principally or in the rear of Graham.
The 18th, still Lezaca.—O’Donnell is unwell, from the wound in his leg, from which thirty splinters have been extracted: he is going to the baths. He is the Conde de Bispal, commanding the army of Reserve. Jeron is to take his command now, and give up the Gallicians; our men, however, I am glad to learn, are in general considered as very healthy: General Cole told me that his division was particularly so, after all their fatigues. The army have Lord Wellington to thank principally, even for this. Last year the mules per company allowed by Government were employed in carrying the heavy iron camp-kettles, and our men had no tents; though they were allowed them, they could not be carried. This year Lord Wellington had light tin kettles made, one for every six men, for the mess, to be carried by one of the men, each having a small cooking machine of tin besides. This plan sets the mules free and disposable, and thus three tents have been carried for every company, and allowing for absentees, guards, officers’ servants, sentries, &c.; this now nearly houses or covers all our men, and contributes much to the health of the army. It was entirely an arrangement of his own. The Portuguese are still without tents, as are the French and the Spaniards.
The French, however, are very expert at making wood huts, with fern for the top and for the bedding, tolerably comfortable except in heavy rains. So are now the Portuguese indeed, and many of them (as well as our men who happen not to have tent room) join two together, and giving up their blankets for sleeping on, make a good tent of them, which holds two very well, and only consists of their two muskets and two blankets; and now, since we have obtained so much plunder, generally a good sack or piece of carpet at the rough weather side. Orders were given before we marched from Granada, by Lord Wellington, to have all blankets looped and strengthened at the corners, for this purpose, all ready, as an excellent defence from the sun, even better than a tent, for it is cooler, and a very tolerable one from rain.
I am to dine with General Cole, who is quartered here. My people in this house are up all night, making a noise, and baking for Longa, and all day the children are shaking the dirt from above down upon me.
FOOTNOTES:[5]It is situated in the Val de Soto.
[5]It is situated in the Val de Soto.
[5]It is situated in the Val de Soto.