A DIRECT communication between the opposite banks of the river being thus established, the remaining battalions of the Guards, the chief part of the King's German Legion, together with a proportionate force of cavalry, and of artillery, marched at day-break on the twenty-fifth, to join their comrades among the sand hills. The whole of the besieging army being at the same time put in motion, the gap which, prior to this date, had existed in the line of investment, was filled up. Little or no fighting took place on that occasion. The enemy perceiving our design, offered no serious resistance to its accomplishment, but evacuating the village of Boucaut, after having exchanged a few shots with the skirmishers, established their picquets about half a mile in its rear. As yet, therefore, a good deal more of open space was granted to them than they could long hope to enjoy ; but all opportunity of corresponding with Marshal Soult, as well as of adding to the stock of grain and provisions already in their arsenals, was cut off.

The running and irregular fire which had been maintained throughout the morning, gradually died away, and ceased altogether about noon. From that hour till after night-fall, every thing continued quiet. A feverish excitement necessarily consequent, even VOL. XVIII.

upon a trifling skirmish, prevailed indeed amongst us; nor did we venture to take off our accoutrements, or return to our usual employments during the remainder of the day. But we might have done so, had we felt disposed, with the most perfect safety, for the enemy were too well satisfied with being permitted to retain what they did retain, of territory beyond the glacis, to endanger its loss by an useless attempt to regain what had been wrested from them. Still we were anxious, and the anxiety which pervaded us all the day, ceased not to operate at night.

The garrison of Bayonne, we were well aware, was at once numerically powerful, and composed of the best troops in the French army. From all that we could learn, Soult had by no means calculated upon the plan of operations adopted by Lord Welling

ton.

Concluding that his Lordship would halt after the passage of the Adour, and invest that important place with the whole of his forces, he had thrown into it no fewer than fifteen thousand picked men, assigning the command to General Thouvenot, an officer, who, by his successful defence of Burgos, on a former occasion, appeared worthy of so delicate a trust on the present. Lord Wellington was, however, too conscious of the advan

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tages which arise in war from cele rity of movement, to waste his time before the walls of Bayonne. He accordingly left Sir John Hope to mask the city with the two British divisions, which composed the left column, a force somewhat inferior in point of numbers to that which it blockaded; whilst he himself, with the remaining five divisions, hung upon the rear of the retreating army. It is true, that our little corps d'armie was supported by thirty or forty thousand Spaniards, who, if they served no other purpose, made at least a show, and hindered weak foraging parties from traversing the open country; but upon their efforts little reliance could be placed, in case a bold sally should be made; whilst the scattered order of our encampment hindered us from opposing, at any given point, a force at all competent to meet at least with decisive superiority, that portion of the garrison which the governor might at any time employ in such a service. The circumference of Bayonne, measuring it from the exterior of the works, cannot be computed at less than four miles. Our line again which encircled it at a distance of three miles from the ditch, would of course greatly exceed this; and when it is remembered that not more than fifty thousand men at the utmost, and of these something less than fifteen thousand who were trust-worthy, occupied that line, it will be seen that our situation was not such as to render caution unnecessary, or apprehension groundless.

We had, however, retired to rest at the usual hour, on the night of the 25th; all things continuing in apparent security; when sleep, which was beginning to assert its dominion over our senses, was suddenly dispelled, by the report of a musk t-shot, in the direction of the picquets. The battalion to which I was attached, still kept its ground behind the sand hill, whither it had moved, after the affair of the 23d. Its out-posts were divided from the camp, only by the hill; consequently little time could be given to prepare and accoutre in case an attack should be made. Not a moment was therefore wasted in surmises, not a hint was thrown out as to the propriety of waiting till a little more firing should bespeak cause of serious alarm; but every man sprang from his pallet, and casting about him as much of his

garments as could be found on the instant, seized his arms, and ran to the place of muster. And now another and another shot was fired; the bugles began to sound, the baggage was hastily packed, the horses saddled, and all the bustle and hurry attendant upon the preparations for battle took place. For myself, having seen that my men were in their ranks, I ran to the top of the hill, from whence I beheld the flashes of several muskets, half way between our sentinels and those of the enemy; but no sound of advancing columns met my ear, neither were these flashes returned by our own soldiers. The degree of surprise excited by all this was not, however, of long continuance. The officer in command of the out-posts dispatched a messenger to inform us, that no symptom of an attack was discernible; but that several deserters had come into his lines, at whom the French sentries fired as they fled. This account was speedily confirmed by the arrival of the deserters in the camp; and the troops accordingly laid aside their weapons, and returned to their tents.

The alarm in that direction had hardly subsided, when another and a not less serious one arose in a different quarter. A sentry who was posted by the bank of the river, reported to his officer, when visiting him, that boats were moving, and oars splashing in the water. Apprehensions were immediately excited for the safety of the bridge, against which we naturally concluded that some attempt was about to be made. To oppose it as far as possible, of whatever nature it might be, three field-pieces which were attached to our brigade, limbered up, and galloped to the water's edge; these I accompanied, and certainly the splash of oars was very audible, though the darkness would not permit us to distinguish from whence the sound proceeded. A shot or two were, however, fired in the direction of the sound, just by way of hinting to the enemy that we were awake; and whether it was that the hint was not lost upon them, or that they never seriously entertained the idea of assailing the bridge, an immediate cessation of rowing was the consequence. Having watched, therefore, for half an hour, and neither hearing nor seeing anything indicative of danger, I left the gunners to themselves; and returning

to my cloak and blanket, I wrapt my self closely up, and slept soundly and securely till the morning.

The whole of the 26th passed over, without the occurrence of any event worthy of mention. By myself it was spent, not very profitably, in sauntering about among the pine-woods, where little or no game was to be found; whilst for the troops in general, as well within as without the walls of the beleaguered city, it might be accounted a sort of armed truce. Hardly a cannon-shot was fired from sunrise till sun-set, on either side; but matters were drawing fast to a crisis. Stores and ammunition were continually conveyed across the river in large quantities, and it was manifest, that even the few miles of open country which the garrison still held, would, before long, be taken away from them. It was, therefore, no unexpected communication which I received, on the morning of the 27th, that the corps was to stand to its arms forthwith, and that the enemy were to be driven in all directions within their works.

Having, in a former chapter, described the nature of the ground in our immediate front, the reader will readily understand why no serious advance on our part was intended. We were already within point-blank range of the guns on the ramparts; whilst between the ramparts and the camp, no broken ground, nor village, nor any other species of cover, existed. We could not, therefore, hope to establish ourselves, had we even pushed on, whilst the French general, by opening the sluices from the river, might, at any moment, lay the whole level under water. On the opposite side of the Adour, however, the case was different. There, the most forward British picquets were very little in advance of the village of Boucaut, and the village of Boucaut is full four miles from the citadel. The face of the country, too, between these points, being rugged and broken, numerous positions could be taken up by the besiegers, in which, whilst they were themselves secure from the fire of the place, they could easily prevent the garrison from venturing beyond the ditch; whilst the relative situations of the town and fortress, rendered the one secure against active annoyance, till after the other should have fallen into our hands. Though, therefore,

it was understood that the whole of our line was to be drawn somewhat more tightly round the city, we were all aware that the trenches would be opened, and breaching batteries thrown up against the citadel alone.

The men being accoutred, and the baggage packed, we stood quietly in our ranks, behind the sand hill, till a gun, from the opposite bank of the stream, sounded the signal of attack. Upon this we extended our files, so as to give to a single weak battalion the appearance of an entire brigade, and ascending the heights, we stopped short where the tops of our bayonets, and the feathers of our caps, just showed themselves over the ridge. Similar demonstrations were likewise made by the corps which filled Anglette and crowned the rise in connexion with it; whilst occasionally a shout was raised, as if at length the order of attack had been given, and we were preparing to rush on. All this was done, for the purpose of drawing the attention of the enemy to many different points at the same time, and thus hindering them from opposing, with the total strength of the garrison, the forward movements of those who were appointed to invest the castle.

Whilst we, and the divisions near us, were thus amusing ourselves and the enemy with the pomp and circumstance, rather than with the reality of war, the guards and light Germans, with a corps of Portuguese infantry, were very differently occupied on the other bank of the river. As our situation was a commanding one, it enabled us to obtain a tolerably distinct view of their proceedings. We saw one column of British troops form on the sands beside Boucaut. In front of it was a body of German riflemen, who pressed leisurely forward in skirmishing order, till they reached the picquets of the French troops. Of the enemy, on the other hand, a heavy column showed itself upon the high ground, where it halted, and continued to send out numerous parties to support the out-posts; between whom and the Germans, a hot skirmish soon began, nor could it be said that any decided advantage was gained by either party during several hours.

The column which we descried upon the sands beside Boucaut, was not of great strength; indeed, the numbers of our own people, discernible by us,