THE fall of Pampeluna having at length left our further movements unshackled by an enemy at the rear, preparations were made for an attack on their position, which, though rather too extended, was formidable by nature and rendered doubly so by art.
    Petite La Rhune was allotted to our division as their first point of attack, and, accordingly, the 10th being the day fixed, we moved to our ground at midnight on the 9th. The abrupt ridges in the neighbourhood enabled us to lodge ourselves, unperceived, within half-musket-shot of their piquets, and we had left every description of animal behind us in camp in order that neither the barking of dogs nor the neighing of steeds should give indication of our intentions. Our signal of attack was to be a gun from Sir John Hope, who had now succeeded Sir Thomas Graham in the command of the left wing of the army.
    We stood to our arms at dawn of day, which was soon followed by the signal-gun; and each commanding officer, according to previous instructions, led gallantly off to his point of attack. The French must have been, no doubt, astonished to see such an armed force spring out of the ground almost under their noses, but they were, nevertheless, prepared behind their entrenchments, and caused us some loss in passing the short space between us; but the while place was carried within the time required to walk over it, and, in less than half-an-hour from the commencement of the attack, it was in our possession, with all their tents left standing.
    Petite La Rhune was more of an outpost than a part of their position, the latter being a chain of stupendous mountains in its rear, so that, while our battalion followed their skirmishers into the valley between, the remainder of our division were forming for the attack on the main position and waiting for the co-operation of the other divisions, the thunder of whose artillery, echoing along the valleys, proclaimed that they were engaged, far and wide, on both sides of us. About midday our division advanced to the grand attack on the most formidable looking part of the whole of the enemy's position, and, much to our surprise, we carried it with more ease and less loss than the outpost in the morning, a circumstance which we could only account for by supposing that it had been defended by the same troops, and that they did not choose to sustain two hard beatings on the same day. The attack succeeded at every point, and in the evening we had the satisfaction of seeing the left wing of the army marching into St. Jean de Luz.
    Towards the end of the action Colonel Barnard was struck with a musket-ball which carried him clean off his horse. The enemy, seeing that they had shot an officer of mark, very maliciously kept up a heavy firing on the spot while we were carrying him under the brow of the hill. The ball having passed through the lungs, he was spitting blood, and at the moment had every appearance of being in a dying state, but, to our joy and surprise, he, that day month, rode up to the battalion when it was in action near Bayonne, and I need not add that he was received with three hearty cheers.
    A curious fact occurred in our regiment at this period. Prior to the action of the Nivelle an owl had perched itself on the tent of one of our officers (Lieut. Doyle). This officer was killed in the battle and the owl was afterwards seen on Capt. Duncan's tent. His brother-officers quizzed him on the subject by telling him that he was the next on the list, a joke which Capt. D. did not much relish, and it was prophetic, as he soon afterwards fell at Tarbes.
    The movements of the two or three days following placed the enemy within their entrenchments at Bayonne, and the headquarters of our battalion in the Chateau D'Arcangues, with the outposts of the division at the village of Bassasury and its adjacents.
    I now felt myself both in a humour and a place to enjoy an interval of peace and quietness. The country was abundant in every comfort; the chateau was large, well-furnished, and unoccupied, except by a bed-ridden grandmother and young Arcangues, a gay rattling young fellow, who furnished us with plenty of good wine, (by our paying for the same) and made one of our mess.
    On the 20th of November a strong reconnoitring party of the enemy examined our chain of posts. They remained a considerable time within half-musket-shot of one of our piquets, but we did not fire, and they seemed at last as if they had all gone away. The place where they had stood bounded our view in that direction, as it was a small sand-hill with a mud-cottage at the end of it; after watching the spot intensely for nearly an hour, and none shewing themselves, my curiosity would keep no longer, and, desiring three men to follow, I rode forward to ascertain the fact. When I cleared the end of the cottage, I found myself within three yards of at least a dozen of them, who were seated in a group behind a small hedge with their arms laid against the wall of the cottage and a sentry with sloped arms and his back towards me listening to their conversation.
    My first impulse was to gallop in amongst them and order them to surrender; but my three men were still twenty or thirty yards behind, and, as my only chance of success was by surprise, I thought the risk of the delay too great, and, reining back my horse, I made a signal to my men to retire, which, from the soil being a deep sand, we were enabled to do without the slightest noise; but all the while I had my ears pricked up, expecting every instant to find a ball whistling through my body; however, as none of them afterwards shewed themselves past the end of the cottage, I concluded that they had remained ignorant of my visit.
    We had an affair of some kind once a week while we remained there, and, as they were generally trifling and we always found a good dinner and a good bed in the chateau on our return, we considered them rather a relief than otherwise.
    The only instance of a want of professional generosity that I ever had occasion to remark in a French officer occurred on one of these occasions. We were about to push in their out posts for some particular purpose, and I was sent with an order for Lieutenant Gardiner of ours, who was on piquet, to attack the post in his front as soon as he should see a corresponding movement on his flank, which would take place almost immediately. The enemy's sentries were so near as to be quite at Mr Gardiner's mercy, who immediately said to me, "Well, I won't kill these unfortunate rascals at all events, but shall tell them to go in and join their piquet." I applauded his motives, and rode off; but I had only gone a short distance when I heard a volley of musketry behind me, and, seeing that it had come from the French piquet, I turned back to see what had happened, and found that the officer commanding it had no sooner got his sentries so generously restored to him than he instantly formed his piquet and fired a volley at Lieutenant Gardiner, who was walking a little apart from his men, waiting for the expected signal. The balls all fell near, without touching him, and, for the honour of the French army, I was glad to hear afterwards that the officer alluded to was a militia-man.

The centre and left wing of our army advanced on the morning of the 9th of December and drove the enemy within their entrenchments, threatening an attack on their lines. Lord Wellington had the double object, in this movement, of reconnoitring their works and effecting the passage of the Nive with his right wing. The rivers Nive and Adour unite in the town of Bayonne, so that while we were threatening to storm the works on one side, Sir Rowland Hill passed the Nive, without opposition, on the other and took up his ground, with his right on the Adour and his left on the Nive, on a contracted space within a very short distance of the walls of the town. On our side we were engaged in a continued skirmish until dark, when we retired to our quarters under the supposition that we had got our usual week's allowance and that we should remain quiet again for a time.
    We turned out at daylight on the 10th, but, as there was a thick drizzling rain which prevented us from seeing anything, we soon turned in again. My servant soon after came to tell me that Sir Lowry Cole and some of his staff had just ascended to the top of the chateau, a piece of information which did not quite please me, for I fancied that the general had just discovered our quarter to be better than his own and had come for the purpose of taking possession of it. However, in less than five minutes we received an order for our battalion to move up instantly to the support of the piquets and, on my descending to the door to mount my horse, I found Sir Lowry standing there, who asked if we had received any orders, and, on my telling him that we had been ordered up to support the piquets, he immediately desired a staff-officer to order up one of his brigades to the rear of the chateau. This was one of the numerous instances in which we had occasion to admire the prudence and forethought of the great Wellington! He had foreseen the attack that would take place, and had his different divisions disposed to meet it. We no sooner moved up than we found ourselves a party engaged along with the piquets, and, under a heavy skirmishing fire, retiring gradually from hedge to hedge, according as the superior force of the enemy compelled us to give ground, until we finally retired within our home, the chateau, which was the first part of our position that was meant to be defended in earnest. We had previously thrown up a mud rampart around it and loop-holed the different outhouses, so that we had nothing now to do but to line the walls and shew determined fight. The forty-third occupied the churchyard to our left, which was also partially fortified, and the third Cácadores and our third battalion occupied the space between, behind the hedgerows, while the fourth division was in readiness to support us from the rear. The enemy came up to the opposite ridge in formidable numbers and began blazing at our windows and loopholes, and shewing some disposition to attempt it by storm; but they thought better of it and withdrew their columns a short distance to the rear, leaving the nearest hedge lined with their skirmishers. An officer of ours, Mr Hopewood, and one of our serjeants, had been killed in the field opposite, within twenty yards of where the enemy's skirmishers now were. We were very anxious to get possession of their bodies, but had not force enough to effect it. Several French soldiers came through the hedge at different times, with the intention, as we thought, of plundering; but our men shot every one who attempted to go near them until towards evening, when a French officer approached, waving a white handkerchief and pointing to some of his men who were following him with shovels. Seeing that his intention was to bury them, we instantly ceased firing, nor did we renew it again that night.
    The forty-third, from their post at the church, kept up an incessant shower of musketry the whole of the day at what was conceived, at the time, to be a very long range; but from the quantity of balls which were afterwards found sticking in every tree where the enemy stood it was evident that their berth must have been rather uncomfortable.
    One of our officers, in the course of the day, had been passing through a deep roadway, between two banks with hedgerows, when, to his astonishment, a dragoon and his horse tumbled heels over head into the road, as if they had been fired out of a cloud. Neither of them were the least hurt, but it must have been no joke that tempted him to take such a flight.
    Soult expected, by bringing his whole force to bear on our centre and left wing, that he would have succeeded in forcing it, or at all events of obliging Lord Wellington to withdraw Sir Rowland Hill from beyond the Nive, but he effected neither, and darkness left the two armies on the ground which they had fought on.
    General Alten and Sir James Kempt took up their quarters with us in the chateau: our sentries and those of the enemy stood within pistol-shot of each other in the ravine below.
    Young Arcangues, I presume, must have been rather disappointed at the result of the day; for, even giving him credit for every kindly feeling towards us, his wishes must still have been in favour of his countrymen; but when he found that his chateau was to be a bone of contention, it then became his interest that we should keep possession of it, and he held out every inducement for us to do so, which, by the by, was quite unnecessary, seeing that our own comfort so much depended on it. However, though his supplies of claret had failed some days before, he now discovered some fresh cases in the cellar, which he immediately placed at our disposal; and, that our dire resolve to defend the fortress should not be melted by weak woman's wailings, he fixed an arm-chair on a mule, mounted his grandmother on it, and sent her off to the rear, while the balls were whizzing about the neighbourhood in a manner to which even she, poor old lady, was not altogether insensible, though she had become a mounted heroine at a period when she had given up all idea of ever sitting on anything more lively than a coffin.
    During the whole of the 11th each army retained the same ground, and though there was an occasional exchange of shots at different points, yet nothing material occurred.
    The enemy began throwing up a six-gun battery opposite our chateau and we employed ourselves in strengthening the works as a precautionary measure, though we had not much to dread from it, as they were so strictly within range of our rifles that he must have been a lucky artilleryman who stood there to fire a second shot.
    In the course of the night a brigade of Belgians, who were with the French army, having heard that their country had declared for their legitimate king, passed over to our side and surrendered.
    On the 12th there was heavy firing and hard fighting all day to our left, but we remained perfectly quiet. Towards the afternoon Sir James Kempt formed our brigade for the purpose of expelling the enemy from the hill next the chateau, to which he thought them rather too near; but just as we reached our different points for commencing the attack we were recalled and nothing further occurred.
    I went about one o'clock in the morning to visit our different piquets, and, seeing an unusual number of fires in the enemy's lines, I concluded that they had lit them to mask some movement; and taking a patrol with me, I stole cautiously forward and found that they had left the ground altogether. I immediately returned and reported the circumstance to General Alten, who sent off a despatch to apprise Lord Wellington.
    As soon as day began to dawn on the morning of the 13th a tremendous fire of artillery and musketry was heard to our right. Soult had withdrawn everything from our front in the course of the night and had now attacked Sir Rowland Hill with his whole force. Lord Wellington, in expectation of this attack, had, last night, reinforced Sir Rowland Hill with the sixth division which enabled him to occupy his contracted position so strongly that Soult, unable to bring more than his own front to bear upon him, sustained a signal and sanguinary defeat.
    Lord Wellington galloped into the yard of our chateau soon after the attack had commenced and demanded, with his usual quickness, what was to be seen. Sir James Kempt, who was spying at the action from an upper window, told him, and, after desiring Sir James to order Sir Lowry Cole to follow him with the fourth division, he galloped off to the scene of action. In the afternoon, when all was over, he called in again, on his return to headquarters, and told us, "that it was the most glorious affair that he had ever seen; and that the enemy had absolutely left upwards of five thousand men, killed and wounded, on the ground."
    This was the last action in which we were concerned near Bayonne. The enemy seemed quite satisfied with what they had got and offered us no further molestation, but withdrew within their works.

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