twelve or fifteen men were in the ditch, when, with a blinding blaze of light, and a regular chorus of explosions of all kinds, the enemy's fire opened. The leading assailants pushed up the unfinished ravelin, in the hope of tracking a practicable passage to the centre breach; but the summit, in the very focus of the fire, was rendered still more untraversable by a field-piece in the flauk of Santa Maria, which poured incessant charges of grape across the ravelin and on to the covered way of the Trinidad, in which now appeared the head of the 4th division endeavouring to plant its ladders. The deceitful inundation below carried away all that were let down, so that excepting some reckless fellows (among whom was Lieutenant-Colonel Hunt of the 52d) who jumped down the counterscarp, and were almost shaken to death, and a few active fellows who scrambled down the remains of one or two narrow ramps which the enemy had cut away, the whole of those who got into the ditch descended by the six ladders planted before the fire opened; of which, also, the one nearest the salient angle, having slipped into a rocky hole, was too short.

Of

'It then became evident that the highest discipline and the most devoted courage should not be calculated upon to counterbalance the neglect of those precautions which long engineering experience has inscribed as essential. these, the blowing in of the counterscarp, when it exceeds the height of eight feet, is one.

'The two massive columns were first checked, almost hopelessly, on the crest of the glacis under the fire within sixty yards of veteran soldiers, well covered, with several firelocks each, and adding to their bullets wooden cylinders set with slugs. The officers and men, British, Germans, and Portuguese of various regiments became, practically, undisciplined mobs at the foot of the ladders. Then there were desperate rushes, in which the confused mass divided into three parties, according to each man's fancy for a particular breach. Then came the lighted fire-balls, and tar-barrels, the explosion of heavy shells, powder barrels, and fougasses, and the crosses of logs of wood rolled incessantly from above. Then, half-way up the breach were barrows turned the wrong side upwards, and planks studded with pointed nails. On the summit was a close row of chevaux-de-frise of sharp sword-blades well chained together, and from these projected the muzzles of the muskets of grenadiers, with their recollections fresh of two previous successful defences.

The most desperate and persevering gallantry distinguished the assailantssome fell even under the chevaux-de-frise. It is not, however, difficult to conceive that, at no one time, was any body of men launched against the breach in sufficient numbers, organisation, and unanimity of effort to overcome the immmense combinations of obstacles. Captain Currie, of the 52d, a most cool and gallant soldier, seeing the impossibility of success without powerful concert, examined the counterscarp beyond the Santa Maria breach, and having found a narrow ramp imperfectly destroyed, ascended it and sought out the Earl of Wellington who, with a few of his staff, was a short distance off."Can they not get in?" was the earl's anxious and emphatic question. On Currie's reply that those in confusion in the ditch could not, but that a fresh battalion might succeed by the descent he had discovered, one from the reserve was committed to his guidance. From the difficulties of the broken ramp those men, as they got in, became mixed up with the confused parties rushing at or retiring from the breaches, and this last hope vanished.

"The buglers of the reserve were then sent to the crest of the glacis to sound the retreat ; the troops in the ditch, grown desperate, at first would not believe it genuine, and struck the buglers in the ditch who attempted to sound; but at length sullenly reascended the counterscarp as they could, saved only from complete destruction by the smoke of the expiring combustibles of the defenders, and the foul and worn-out condition of their flintlocks. Cool generosity did not forsake the British soldier to the last-one of

them made a wounded officer of the 52d take hold of his accoutrements that he might drag him up a ladder, "or," said he, "the enemy will come out and bayonet you." The fine fellow was just stepping on to the covered way when a thrill was felt by the band which grasped his belt, and the shot which stretched him lifeless threw his body backward into the ditch again, while the officer, whom he had thus rescued, crawled out upon the glacis. As the last stragglers crossed the glacis, the town clock was heard again heavily tolling twelve; but Picton was in the castle to the right, and Leith in the bastion of St. Vincente to the left, and no French sentinel, from that day to this, has again cried Garde à vous from the ramparts of Badajos.'-Historical Record, pp. 163–167.

The battle of Salamanca followed, the advance to Madrid, and the siege of Burgos. Our readers will doubtless remember how the tidings of Salamanca added to the depression that hung upon Napoleon on the morning of Borodino; and the importance which the Peninsular struggle then assumed in his eyes, caused him to send Soult to the assistance of his brother Joseph with so strong a reinforcement as to compel Wellington to retreat from Madrid. This, like all retreats, was a period dangerous to discipline, since rations were running short, and the oak-woods through which the roads lay, were full of pigs feeding on the acorns. Captain John Dobbs gives his evidence, that the Light Division, who as usual formed the rear-guard, were much too near the enemy to attempt shooting at the swine; indeed, all through the 15th of November they were constantly attacked by a body of eight thousand French cavalry, and crossed the river Huebra under the fire of thirty pieces of cannon. All along the bank the enemy fired shells at them; however, the ground was in so miry a state that all these plunged deep into it, and the explosion brought up nothing but clay; but at all the fords, the enemy attempted to cross, and in the combats in the course of this day one valuable officer was killed, and many wounds given. When the enemy ceased their attacks, at nightfall, no pigs remained in sight, but the firing of the French had brought down a quantity of the acorns, and these were a welcome addition to the scanty fare of the tired soldiers. Those of the army who had marched more at their ease had however done some execution among the wild bacon, and thus called forth one of Wellington's sharpest and sternest general orders, which, including as it did the whole army in its sweeping censure, was long recollected with a sore feeling, even by those whose jealousy was only for the reputation of their corps, having joined long after the pig-shooting affair.' We mention this, trifle though it be, to show what was considered as a disgrace in the Peninsular army-when loot was not the familiar word it has become in the present generation-though we allow, under different circumstances, since Spain was a

friendly country. Yet even when the time came for entering France, there was hardly an officer in Wellington's army who would have deemed himself any better than a robber had he stained his hands with plunder.

The Retreat from Madrid' closed at Ciudad Rodrigo, whence in the spring of 1813 commenced the victorious march, whose first memorable fight was on ground already rendered glorious to England by the success of the Black Prince, though, on so much larger a scale are modern military operations than those of the middle ages, that the scene of the battle of Navaretta occupies but a corner of the field of Vittoria; and for the two iron-clad English knights killed in 1362 we have thirtythree officers in 1813. But the hearts were little altered

in the course of 450 years. What a picture Captain Dobbs has given us of the advance of Vandeleur's brigade along the left bank of the Zadorra, to support Graham's attack on the bridges, under the fire of six guns posted on a hill directly in front. This alignment was taken up with the same precision as on a field-day, and a beautiful line was formed, the enemy's 'balls knocking a file out of it at every discharge, the sergeants in rear calling out "Who got that?" and entering the names on their list of casualties.' Then advancing, they gained the height and captured the guns. By this time the victory had been completed, and the enemy were in full flight, leaving behind them an enormous amount of property-so tempting to the army, that again Wellington rebuked them with great sternness characteristic of the lofty honour and severity of the man, and no doubt exaggerated, from the absolute necessity of preserving discipline.

The Light Division was however, as the Historical Record assures us, far away from the scene of confusion, and only halted at midnight from the pursuit of the enemy, six miles distant from the inviting waggons and carriages, so that he must have been a very inveterate plunderer indeed who tramped back in the dark to obtain a share of the spoil.

A month after Vittoria, on the 20th of July, the command of the 52d was resumed by Lieut.-Colonel Colborne, who had come out to rejoin his regiment immediately after his marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of the Reverend James Yonge, of Puslinch, in the county of Devon, on the 21st June, 1813.

Marshal Soult had been again sent with a large force to Spain, and had proposed to his troops to keep their Emperor's birthday in Vittoria; but the English were already on the heights of Vera, and the siege of St. Sebastian was formed, and the French soldiery had apparently concluded their case to be hopeless, for in the course of that polite intercourse

that always seems to have prevailed between the pickets of the two armies, a homesick Frenchman called out to the English to ask how long they meant to be in sending them back to la belle France,' and then began to dance and caper in remembrance, poor fellow, of the delights of his own village-green.

When Soult, in his endeavour to relieve S. Sebastian, had passed 15,000 men over the Fords of the Bidassoa below Vera, to attack the Allies on the slopes of the Crown Mountain, Colborne strongly urged General Skerrett, in command of the Light Division, to break down the Bridge of Vera. Had his advice been followed, the effect of it would have been to place this corps of the enemy in a very critical position, and would most probably, have had a very considerable influence on the remainder of the campaign; for, when after being repulsed, they returned in the middle of the night, the heavy rains had rendered the fords impassable, and (entangled in the bend of the river, with a victorious army in their rear) they had no means of escape but by the bridge above, which, being then defended only by the pickets of the 95th, they forced with the loss of two hundred men and the general who commanded the column.

The breach was not practicable till the 31st of August. The storming party was to consist of 750 volunteers from the Light Division, who were sent for from Vera at the foot of the Pyrenees for the purpose, as there was an idea that the troops who had been more immediately engaged in the siege had become somewhat discouraged, and, as Wellington expressed it, he needed men who could show other troops how to mount a breach,' a phrase which naturally gave such offence that the 5th Division, who had been chiefly engaged in the siege, were said to have declared they would bayonet the men of the Light Division if they got into the place before them, and their commanding officer, Major-General Leith, actually placed them where they would have no opportunity of executing their threat.

As to the Light Division themselves, they volunteered in such numbers that one out of five had to be selected, and that night a most daring and important service was performed by Major Kenneth Snodgrass of the 52d, who had been placed in command of the 13th Portuguese regiment. A lesser breach had been opened, but had been disregarded, partly because, to attack it, it would have been necessary to traverse the river Urumea without a bridge or ford, but this gallant officer suspected that it could be passed when the tide was at ebb, and at 10.30 P.M., the night before the attack, he left the camp alone, crossed the river, with the water above his waist, and thus ascertained that at the corresponding time of the tide the next morning it could be passed. He then went up the steep hill, and absolutely climbed

up into the lesser breach and looked down into the town, at that time one sheet of flame from the shells, which, though by the Duke's orders never thrown into the town, had set fire to the houses nearest the breach, and with the night wind, the fire had become considerable. Snodgrass, returning in safety, reported his discovery, and obtained permission to make an assault the next morning with 300 volunteers from his Portuguese. Such a daring spirit had he infused into these men that so many volunteered as to make the selection difficult. The brave fellows got across the river unmolested, for the French, thinking all secure on that side, had stopped up the embrasures with sand bags, and thus could not bring their artillery to bear on them till all but the rear had passed. The ascent was so precipitous that it was with difficulty that it could be climbed, and they were several times forced back. One gallant Portuguese sergeant was six times wounded, but continued every time to rise and renew his endeavours to climb the ascent. The enterprise only became successful almost at the same moment as the principal assault was over.

was

On

This had begun at 11 A.M. The first obstruction was the explosion of a mine, just as the storming party filed out of the trenches; but it had been sprung too soon, and did little harm. Shortly after (we quote from an eye-witness, who was watching with a telescope from the English camp,) the English climbed the breach, and their scarlet coats made them visible as a red mass. There, however, they were stopped; the reason, as he heard afterwards, was that there an immense ditch between them and the town. their right was a small piece of wall between them and the lesser breach, on their left a rampart rising perpendicularly above them, and entirely covered with French. The only way in which they could advance was by climbing up this rampart, and it was plain how they were struggling to do so, and how the enemy threw them back. After a few minutes the gazer could see the scarlet coats,-too many of them prostrate on the breach. But for two hours they maintained their post, fresh troops took the place of the killed, and Sir Thomas Graham caused the batteries to fire over their heads among the French, till, after a time, some powder and shells on the ramparts exploded, causing great discouragement among the French, so that the officers could be seen trying to force their men to be steady by beating them with their swords, while the British, taking advantage of their confusion, scrambled one or two at a time up the rampart, and at last made their footing good. The town was gained at about 3 P.M. It was rather a significant accident that a board, which decorated some public building with the words 'Napoleon