Dwellings and habits of the farming classes in Navarre—Military quarters—The Author obtains leave to proceed to St. Sebastian as a spectator of the assault—Situation of that city, and appearance of the breaches—Groups collected from the neighbouring parts to witness the storming—Advance of the "forlorn hope," and death of Lieut. Mac Guire—Critical situation of the attacking troops—Seasonable measure adopted by General Graham—Effect produced by the heavy artillery—Destructive explosion among the French—Capture of the city after continued difficulties.

In Navarre the quintas are constructed with projecting roofs, and are two stories high: the second floors are encircled by wooden galleries, adorned with creeping vines, hanging over in festoons, which give these dwellings a most picturesque appearance. The numerous fertile valleys produce wheat, rye, barley, maize, pulse, and apples which make very tolerable cider.

When on picquet, we passed whole days in the houses of the small farmers, (who speak the Basque language;) and although these dwellings lay between the hostile armies, they were not damaged, nor the corn or orchards cut down; yet, for leagues in every other direction, all the small fields of Indian corn had been torn up by the very roots, and carried off.

Owing to this latter circumstance, many of the peasantry became impoverished, and were obliged to content themselves with very scanty fare; their bread was made of Indian corn, which they mixed up into a cake, an inch thick, and then put it into a frying pan, which was repeatedly turned, until its contents were about half baked; this operation being completed, the whole family formed a circle; the cake was then broken into pieces, and handed to each individual, so hot that they would shift it from hand to hand, making all sorts of wry faces; this frugal supper being concluded, a large brass cauldron was filled with tepid water, in which the elder of the family first bathed his feet, and then the others, according to seniority, until all, in rotation, performed the same cleanly ablution, which was never omitted before retiring to rest.

While on the position of Santa Barbara, or whenever in the vicinity of the enemy, it was customary to turn out an hour before daybreak, and for the troops to stand to their arms until objects at a short distance became visible. On these mountains we were terribly annoyed by the toads. Many officers possessed mattresses or covers, (the latter being usually stuffed with dried fern,) but if they happened to be left in the tent two or three days without removing, or taken out to dry, which was often the case, owing to heavy rains or dense fogs, we were sure to find one or two bloated speckled toads under them, as large in circumference as a small dessert plate.

Towards the end of the month, we could distinctly hear the heavy thundering of the battery cannon at St. Sebastian, and an order was issued for the first, fourth, and light divisions to send a certain number of volunteers, to assist the fifth division in storming the breaches at that place, as soon as they should be considered practicable.

By some mistake, we were informed that two officers were to proceed from our regiment with the volunteers; accordingly Lieut. John O'Connell and myself offered our services, and marched off and formed with the rest of the volunteers of the division, in front of General Alten's quarters, which was about a league in rear of our encampment; but as more officers had proffered their services than the proper quota, I, amongst the rest, made a surplus, and Lieut. O'Connell, being my senior, remained. This officer had formed one of the storming party at Ciudad Rodrigo, and at Badajoz, where he was badly wounded, a ball having passed in at the top of his shoulder and came out at the elbow joint: he was ultimately killed on the sanguinary breach of St. Sebastian. Lieut.-Col. Hunt, of the 52nd, took the command of the volunteers of the division. Major W. Napier had also volunteered, but not being required on this occasion, both he and myself returned to camp.

On the following day, myself and three other officers obtained permission to proceed across the mountain to be spectators of the assault. The weather was extremely fine, and we enjoyed a tranquil ride over the mountains, many of which were entirely covered with oak trees, aromatic plants, fern, and evergreens. For more than two leagues there was scarcely a house to be seen. The day being far advanced before we left our camp, darkness overtook us, and, on making enquiries at a cottage, we were informed, by a peasant, that there was an encampment at a short distance, which we soon discovered to the right of the road, and found it to be the 85th light infantry, just arrived from England. We received a hearty welcome, besides aguardiÉnte y vino tinto, and then wrapping our cloaks around about us, we enjoyed a few hours repose in Major Ferguson's tent.

At daybreak we went on our way through an open, hilly, and sandy country, towards St. Sebastian, and in a few hours took post in the trenches cut through the sand banks, on the right bank of the river Urumea, and within six hundred yards of the town, which stands near the river, or rather on a small peninsula, between two arms of the sea. The place consisted of twenty streets, besides churches, convents, and monasteries; and is enclosed on three sides by ramparts, bastions, and half-moons. The castle is built on the top of a bare rock, and overlooking the sea; the entrance of the harbour, on the west side, is between two moles, and is capable of containing a few small vessels.

During our stay in the trenches, just below a mortar battery, the enemy hardly fired a shot from the fortress, in the walls of which were two breaches eighty yards asunder. The principal and wide-mouthed breach had crumbled into a vast mound of sand, rubbish, and broken masonry. A breach is indeed an awful mound of dilapidation to look on, or rather a heap of disagreeable rubbish, particles of which sparkle brightly in the sun beams, while the whole seems to the amateur easy of ascent, but the wary veteran knows it to be a deceitful slope, re-entrenched from behind, and most probably cut off from all communication with the interior of the town. Well may it be called "the deadly breach:" all fighting is bad enough, but when the valiant soldier sees insurmountable obstacles before him, and finds all his efforts unavailing, and death jostling him on every side, his foot, perhaps, planted on the body of an expiring comrade, whose bleeding mouth is filled with dust, and whose trampled uniform at last becomes identified with the rubbish, and the human form no longer distinguishable; and every instant the heap of the slain accumulating, without any possibility of carrying the place,—then, indeed, comes the "tug of war;" for, as a distinguished officer very justly observed, "A breach may be made the strongest part of a fortification, since every combustible, and power of defence, are brought to a known focus."

Having remained in the trenches a considerable time, we made for the small town of Renteria, where we put up, with two convalescent officers of our own corps, until the next day.

On the 31st the morning broke hazy. Meanwhile before starting for St. Sebastian, we were introduced to Lieutenant Folliet, a young officer of our regiment, who had just come from England for the first time; he expressed much regret at not being able to witness the assault, as he very properly considered it incorrect to leave his detachment, which was ordered to march that morning for Bera. This circumstance I mention, owing to the premature death of this officer.

At half-past ten o'clock, a. m., we took post within cannon range of the ramparts of St. Sebastian, immediately overlooking the river Urumea. The troops of the fifth division were already formed in the trenches cut across the isthmus, within a short distance of the body of the place, ready to move forward as soon as the tide should be sufficiently low to admit of a passage. It was so well known that the assault was to take place, that numerous inhabitants had flocked from the adjacent towns and villages, dressed in their holiday attire, and were already seated on the hill which commanded a panoramic view of the town. Many of the women were clothed in dresses of English calico, and in fact composed a motley group and mixture in dress and appearance, such as I had never before seen in Spain. Two pretty Spanish girls were seated on the slope of the hill, and offered us some of their sugar drops, whereupon we thought we might as well place ourselves beside them as elsewhere. A few minutes before the troops moved to the assault, all within the town seemed tranquil; no noise issued from its walls, nor was a single French soldier visible on the ramparts.

Soon after eleven o'clock, the "forlorn hope," headed by Lieut. Mac Guire of the 4th regiment, sprang out of the trenches, followed by the storming party, and a brigade of the fifth division;¹ but, owing to the difficulty of extricating themselves from the trenches, and to their extreme ardour, they ran towards the great breach, discharging their fire arms to the left, to keep down the musketry of the enemy, who galled them by a terrible flanking fire from a bastion which projected nearly parallel, and enfiladed their left flank while moving towards the breach.

Lieut. Mac Guire wore a cocked-hat, with a long white feather, to make himself conspicuous. He was a remarkably handsome young man, active of limb, well-made, and possessing a robust frame. He ran forward, amid projectiles and a shower of bullets, with such speed that only two soldiers could manage to keep within five or six yards behind him; and he actually jumped over the broken masonry, at the foot of the breach, before he fell. In a moment afterwards he was hid from our view by the column bounding over his body,² to climb the breach. They had no sooner gained the crest of the breach, than they found the enemy strongly entrenched at each flank of the terre-plein of the rampart and the interior slope, composed of a scarped wall, nearly thirty feet deep, so that the brave soldiers who mounted the breach fell a sacrifice to their valour, by an overwhelming cross-fire.

The enemy had cleared away the rubbish some feet from a round tower, nearly in the centre, and on the crest of the great breach, which they maintained, and it was from this apparently trifling and unbreached spot that the troops sustained their principal loss—standing up to their knees in rubbish, and losing their lives without any probability of success. As the French, however, could not well fire on their left flank without hanging over the parapet, our soldiers were enabled to keep their station on the slope of the breach, at the expense of a great number of officers and men. Had the enemy been able to flank the slope of the breach, all the troops must have been annihilated. The slaughter, however, was so great, as to cause the most serious apprehension, and the wounded and dying were suffering dreadfully, and languishing in the most horrible torments, for want of water, without being again able to regain the trenches, owing to the cross-fire of musketry through which they had to run the gauntlet while advancing to the assault. With the exception of the guns in the castle, the enemy hardly fired any artillery from the walls, either from their being principally dismounted, or that they were unable to depress them sufficiently to do much execution. At this time hardly a word escaped the lips of the astonished spectators; and many of the women were drowned in tears at so doleful a spectacle.

At twelve o'clock General Graham, seeing affairs in this desperate state, ordered the guns from the batteries to open, to oblige the enemy to keep down, and to shield the troops for a short time, from their fatal bullets, and to give them a little breathing time, so as to enable the wounded who could yet walk to regain the trenches. The fire from the batteries was terrific, and the troops retired four or five yards down the slope of the breach, while the heavy shot passed over their heads, skimming the round tower, the ramparts and the crest of the breach with a precision truly astonishing, so that the enemy could not show their heads, or discharge a single firelock. Never was artillery better served, or opened at a more seasonable moment; and without doubt this was one of the principal causes of carrying the day; for indeed, had it not been for this seasonable relief, the troops must have been inevitably sacrificed by piecemeal. The volumes of smoke arose in dense clouds, and the reverberation was amazing. The iron balls rattled into the devoted town, unroofing the houses, knocking up the dust and rubbish, and thundering against the walls with a tremendous crash, as if the ramparts were cracking and every stone broken, and the whole tumbling into a mass of ruins. All the edifices seemed tottering to the very foundations, and it was as though every living creature within were about to be swallowed up in the vortex and buried amid the utter desolation.

When first the assault took place, the sun shone forth brilliantly; it was now twelve o'clock, and the clouds blackened and gathered together, foreboding the coming storm.

The blazing of the heavy artillery lasted more than half an hour, during which time General Graham let loose the volunteers and the reserve of the fifth division against the large breach and adamantine round tower. The Spanish girls near us ejaculated (while shedding a few pearly tears, and unfolding the little papers containing their sugar-drops,) "pobre Sebastiano! pobre Sebastiano!" We asked them why they did not say, poor soldiers,—"Oh si, si," answered they, "pobres soldados tambien!"

As soon as the fire of the heavy calibre had ceased, fresh efforts were made against the breach, and the sharp fire of the deadly small arms was resumed. At half past twelve o'clock a Portuguese regiment led on by Lieutenant Colonel Snodgrass³ moved along the sands and began to ford the river Urumea, the water at low tide being at this spot about two hundred yards in width. As soon as they reached the middle of the stream, a gun from an embrasure exactly opposite to them discharged a round of grape shot, which fell into the middle of the column, and knocked the men down in every direction: some of them sank to rise no more, others floundered in the water, and called out for help in the most pitiable manner. The enemy fired a second discharge before the Portuguese could extricate themselves from the stream, (which reached up to the hips), and again inflicted dreadful havoc in their ranks. The smoke of the last round created considerable surprise among us, as it was of a reddish colour, as if red ochre had been mixed up with the powder. The excellent and steady conduct of the 13th regiment of Portuguese was beyond all praise. Having cleared the river they closed up, moved forward and ascended the small breach, eighty yards from the larger one.

At this time we also observed part of the 85th regiment a short distance out at sea (in large boats) apparently threatening the back of the rock, on which stands the Castle of La Motta, but this threat of escalading the rocks was relinquished owing to the impracticability of such an enterprise; the troops in the breaches became fixtures as before, and no further progress towards the capturing of the fortress appeared to be made. At last I saw several soldiers quitting the large breach and running to the right to assist the Portuguese at the small one; and a brave bugler sounded the advance several times. Confused cries of assembled voices echoed from the ramparts at that point, and we could hear sounds like the battering of firelocks against doors or barricades, intermingled with occasional firing of musketry. Still, no very serious impression was visible to us.

At one o'clock a violent explosion took place on the rampart behind the French traverse to the right of the large breach, and, before the fragments blown into the air had fallen, or the smoke cleared away, the troops nobly pushed forward, and, at the same time, the crowd of spectators on the hill rose simultaneously with joy beaming on every countenance; and when the hollow sounds of the firing were heard within the interior of the town, we became satisfied that the place was taken.—The explosion was supposed to be caused by accidental sparks, or loose cartridge paper falling on the train. Probably no one living knows the real cause. However, all the French soldiers near the spot were blown into the air, and fell singed and blackened in all directions; and the dead soldiers lay so thick on the slope of the breach that it looked, to the naked eye, as if the mass of troops were still stationary.

Soon after, we saw the French issuing from the town, and firing down upon the British troops from behind some old walls running in zig zags up the castle hill. There cannot be a shadow of doubt that the place would not have been carried, had it not been for the decision of General Graham, who, persisting in a constant attack to the last, kept the troops in that honorable post to take advantage of any contingencies that might chance to throw open the door to victory.

The enemy lost seven hundred men, prisoners taken in the town, who were unable to reach the castle. The fifth division and the volunteers from the British army lost two thousand men and officers killed and wounded; amongst the latter Generals Leith, Oswald and Robinson were wounded, and Colonel Fletcher commanding the engineers was killed by a musket ball, just before the assault took place.

At half past one p.m. a heavy mist began to fall, which caused us to bend our course towards Renteria, and, before we reached half a league, the rain descended in torrents; but none had fallen during the storming of the breaches.