THE great victory which had been atchieved by the allied armies, was followed up with that promptitude and decision which belong to the character of their leader. Not a moment was lost in pursuing the fugitive army-in harassing its retreat-intercepting the reinforcements which sought to relieve it-or investing the strong fortresses which now formed the last hold of the enemy upon Spain. Not a moment was left him to recover from the consternation into which he had been thrown by the sudden and fatal blow so lately inflicted.

General Clausel, ignorant of the defeat of his countrymen, had approached Vittoria, with part of the army of the north; but retired towards Logrono, after ascertaining the result of the action of the 21st. He remained in the neighbourhood of that place on the 24th, and till late on he 25th.

Logrono, which Clausel thus occupied, is a populous and fine town; the streets are narrow, but the houses in general are good. The Ebro flows by the north side of the town; a handsome bridge, with a gateway in the centre, is thrown over the river

at the northern entrance. A fine walk nearly encircles the town, and a square on its southern side is well planted with trees, and abounds with promenades formed in different directions. A large convent in ruins supplies the place of barracks; and attached to it is a crescent forming a convenient parade, the enclosed space of which had been originally designed for bull-fights. The French, during their stay in this town, constructed a very spacious and convenient building for a military hospital, furnished with a kitchen and laboratory, store-rooms and surgery, which were afterwards taken and occupied by our troops, and proved a valuable acquisition to the allied army. The town contains several handsome churches; the collegiate church in particular is a very elegant building. During the five years the French occupied this town, they ingratiated themselves very much with the people. The arrival of the British, however, produced a great sensation.

Lord Wellington conceived, that as General Clausel had lingered so long at this place, there might be some chance of intercepting his retreat; and after sending the light troops towards

Roncesvalles, in pursuit of the army under Joseph Buonaparte, he moved against General Clausel a large force towards Tudela, and another towards Logrono. The French general, however, made forced marches, followed by General Mina. He crossed the Ebro at Tudela ; but being informed that the British were upon the road, he immediately recrossed, and marched towards Zaragoza. He did not attempt to make a stand at Zaragoza, but leaving a detachment under General Paris, passed by a circuitous route through Jaca across the Pyrenees. Paris, on the approach of General Mina, retreated in the same manner. Mina, however, still followed the enemy, and took from him two pieces of cannon, and some stores in Tudela, besides 300 prisoners; General Clinton also took possession of five guns which the enemy left at Logrono.-In the meantime the troops under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir R. Hill moved through the mountains to the head of the Bidassoa, the enemy having on that side retired into France.

While these events took place on the right of the army, General Graham with the left wing, composed chiefly of Portuguese and Spaniards, was not inactive. The French evacuated all their stations in Biscay, except Santona and St Sebastian; and uniting their garrisons to the division of the army of the north, which was at Bilboa, they assembled a force more considerable than had at first been supposed. Their first effort was made at the junction of the road from Pamp luna with that from Bayonne; they posted themselves on a hill commanding these two roads, and determined to maintain it. A vigorous attack, however, commanded by LieutenantColonel Williams, quickly dislodged them. The enemy then retreated into Tolosa, a town slightly fortified, and by barricading the gates, and occupy

ing convents and large buildings in the vicinity, they succeeded in rendering it a strong position. It was necessary to bring forward a nine-pounder in order to burst open one of the gates. The allies made their way into the town; but it was already dark; and the troops of the different nations could scarcely be distinguished. The perplexity thus occasioned enabled the French to escape with smaller loss than they must otherwise have sustained-The enemy made his last stand on the Bidassoa, which forms the boundary, in this direction, between Spain and France. He was driven across it by a brigade of the army of Gallicia under the command of General Castanos, and the bridge over the river was destroyed. Port Passages, a harbour of considerable importance at the mouth of the Bidassoa, was then taken by Longa, and its garrison of 150 men made prisoners.

The town of Passages is very singularly constructed, and is as disagreeable as it is peculiar. The sea flows through a defile of mountains, and forms a navigable river to a considerable extent inland, affording a very safe and convenient harbour for shipping, with which it is exceedingly crowded. This circumstance imparts an interest to the place, which joined to the beauty of the surrounding country, compensates, in some degree, for the extreme wretchedness of its accommodation. The town consists of two exceedingly narrow and dirty streets, one of which lies on one side of the river, and the other on the opposite bank, the communication between the two being carried on solely by means of boats.

When the enemy retired across the Ebro, previously to the battle of Vittoria, they left a garrison of about 600 men in the castle of Pancorbo, by which they commanded the great communication from Vittoria to Bour

gos. Lord Wellington therefore or dered the Conde de Abisbal, on his march to Miranda, to make himself master of the town and lower works, and to blockade the place. The Spanish general accordingly carried the town and lower fort by assault on the 28th of July, after which the garrison surrendered by capitulation.The decision and dispatch with which this place was subdued were highly creditable to the officers and troops employed.

The Spanish cortes, on receiving intelligence of the great success of Lord Wellington, voted thanks to the fieldmarshal and his brave army by ac clamation. They sent a deputation to the British ambassador to compliment him; and came to a unanimous vote that a territorial property should be conferred upon their grandee, the Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo; and that the title of possession should cont in these words: "In the name of the Spanish nation, in testimony of its most sincere gratitude."

The allied armies meanwhile pursued their victorious career Though the enemy had withrawn the whole of their right and left wings into France, three divisions of the centre, under General Gazan, remained in the valley of Bustan, of which they seemed de termined to keep possession, as it is very fertile and full of strong positions. Upon the 4th, 5th, and 7th of July, however, they were successively dislodged from all their posts, by two brigades of British and two of Portuguese infantry, under Sir R. Hill; and compelled to retreat into France. The allies lost eight men killed, and 119 wounded. These affairs, by which Sir R. Hill dislodged the enemy from this fine valley and drove him into France, were extremely brilliant.

Before the British army could be conveniently employed in more decisive operations against the enemy, it

became necessary to reduce the fortresses of St Sebastian and Pampluna, two of the strongest in Spain. As these were the last sieges undertaken by the British troops in the peninsula-3s the reduction of both places required from the British army efforts almost incredible, and as it seems to be the general opinion among officers of t science and experience, that considera- 1 ble improvements may yet be accomplished in this branch of the service, a brief review of the opinions entertained on this subject may not be uninteresting. We shall premise a short account of the situation and appearance of St Sebastian and Pampluna.

St Sebastian, which once formed one o the finest cities of Spain, and which still bears marks of its former splendour, is almost a league from Passages The houses appear to have been in gener. I large and handsome, and the streets, for the most part, are uniform and spacious. The town is built on a peninsula, running nearly east and west, the northern side being washed by the river Urumea, the southern by the sea. The front defences, which crossed the isthmus to wards the land, when the place was besieged, consisted of a double line of works, with the usual counterscarp, covered way, and glacis, but the works running lengthways of the peninsula were composed of only a single line; and, trusting to the water in front to render them inaccessible, they were built without any cover. The northern line is quite exposed from the top to the bottom, to a range of hills on the right bank of the river, at the distance of six or seven hundred yards from it. The neglect to cover these walls appears unaccountable, as the Urumea for some hours before and after low water is fordable, and the tide recedes so much, that for the same period there is a considerable space left dry along the left bank of the

river, by which troops can march to the foot of the wall.-Marshal Berwick, when he attacked St Sebastian in 1701 aware of this circumstance, threw up batteries on those hills to breach the town-wall, pushed an approach along the isthmus, and establish ed himself on the covered-way of the land front. So soon as the breach was practicable, the governor capitulated for the town, and the Duke obliged bim, with the garrison, to retire into the castle.

Pamplunais represented by some travellers as the finest town in Spain. Its vicinity to France, and the sea ports upon the coast of Biscay, which, from the excellence of the roads, are easy of access even to carriages, combined with a ready communication to the metropolis, and the fine country of Catalonia, bestow on Pampluna many advantages.-The town itself is spacious, airy, and handsome; the streets are wider than those of other Spanish towns, and the houses are generally more commodious. The approach to the city is noble; and, as a completely fortified place, Pampluna has a very im posing appearance. Its elegant and lofty spires are seen from a great distance, and altogether, with its walls, bastions, and turrets, it has an appearance of strength and grandeur. The northern part of the town is much elevated, and the Ebro is seen approaching from a considerable distance. A handsome bridge is thrown over the river, which conducts the traveller to the city through a spa cious gateway. The suburbs are scattered over the banks of the river, but the French have done them considerable injury. Within the town they practised their usual system of plunder and spoliation.-In the centre of Pampluna there is a large market place; a handsome municipalhouse, adjacent to which is a very spacious square with piazzas; con.

VOL. VI. PART I.

vents, and other charitable endowments, some of which are very handsome and costly, meet the eye in all directions. The collegiate church is a large and handsome building, erected on the summit of a hill, at the northern extremity of the town, and in the centre of a paved square. It appears to be very ancient; is of Gothic architecture, and decorated, like many other Gothic edifices, by various figures in the most uncouth attitudes. The front has been modernized, and is very finely ornamented. A royal palace is still shewn, more remarkable for its antiquity than its beauty. The citadel occupies a large space of ground, and consists chiefly of a crescent of small houses, where the artificers reside; it has no tower, or any thing indicating a castellated appearance, above its walls. A walk round the ramparts commands many fine views of the surrounding country. The fortifications are unusually strong, and doubly ditched. Interposed between these works and the city, on one side, is a large square, ornamented with fine poplar trees, which forms a parade for the exercise of the troops. The town, though still populous, has been much reduced of late years; and its present inhabitants have been greatly impoverished by their late connection with the French.

Such were the places which the British army was now ordered to reduce, strengthened as they were by all the resources of French ingenuity, and defended by a chosen band of French troops.

The most inattentive observer of the

campaigns in the peninsula, cannot but have remarked, that, in the field, on every occasion, the British have shewn a decided superiority over the French, which neither inequality of numbers, strength of position, nor other circumstance, has been able to counterbalance: Yet in every instance when a fortified

L

place has been attacked, this superiority has been lost, and the enemy has either successfully resisted, or the place has been gained at a price above its current value. So constant and so marked a difference in the result of contentions between the same troops when fighting in the field and at a siege, cannot be the effect of chance, but must be explained by reference to some constantly operating cause.

As the corps of artillery and engineers are the most prominent actors at a siege, it is natural to conjecture that one or other of them is deficient in a knowledge of its duty, but the former is universally and deservedly considered as the best in Europe; and Lord Wellington's express declaration, that the attacks were carried on by the engineers with the greatest ability, and that by their conduct on such occasions they had augmented their claims to his approbation, must for ever remove any suspicion of want of talent or zeal in this department. It becomes thereobject of considerable interest to ascertain why so skilful a general, with the bravest troops in the worldwith excellent artillery-and with engineers whose conduct has always met with his approbation, should not have carried on his sieges with the same certainty of success, and the same inconsiderable loss, which have attended the operations of the ordinary generals of the French army.

fore an

Whatever opinions the English may entertain against fortifying their own towns, no doubt can exist, after the experience of so many costly sieges, as to the advantage occasionally to be derived from having the power to reduce those of an enemy. Within these few years the judgment of men in all countries on the value of fortresses, has undergone great changes. The overwhelming torrent of the French armies, supported by opinion, bore down every thing; the best fortified towns yielded to it equally with the open village;

not one fortress opposed a due resistance, to uphold its ancient reputation, and all belief in their use was staggered. That torrent is happily now spent ; the operations of war are fast returning into their former channels, and fortresses are resuming their due rank in its combinations. No longer do we hear of towns surrendered on a first summons, or under the terrors of a bombardment; no longer are fortified places considered as useless drains on an army. In the hands of the French they have suddenly assumed a new character, and the most insignificant post makes a protracted resistance-a resistance which to many appears unaccountable. To profit by this feeling, the French government have, by popular treatises, and other arts, attempted but too successfully to impose a belief that with them the defence has received some great improvement; and the enemies of France, by a strange perverseness of judgment, at the very moment when they had to reconquer those possessions which they readily surrendered, were, without due examination, imbibing an opinion of their impregnability. It is of considerable importance to those who are likely to act only as assailants, that such ideas should be discouraged, since they appear to be founded in error. The only improvement which the science of defence appears to have received consists in the negative advantage accruing to it from the disuse, of late years, of that science of attack, and of those powerful means which formerly gave to the besiegers so irresistible a superiority. The best method to restore its former character to the science of attack, would be, to revive the knowledge of the art amongst military men generally, when its great powers would become apparent. Had this been done at an earlier period, the French would have derived no more than a just value from their numerous fortified places.

In the English language there exists