says Charley. "Nothing," says Pat Dogherty, "only that thief Marmont is bent upon some roguery; and just wants, by kickin' up a row, to draw off the old lad's attention;"-manin, ye see, Lord Wellington. "Blessed be God! we're as safe here as if we were in Kilmainham Gaol," says I, looking up at the rock that was between us and the French. "If Marmont batters away till he rises the price of gunpowder, he'll do us no harm." Well, Pat Dogherty stepped round, to see what the firing was about - and Charley Blake had lifted the canteen :-" Here's the pope!" says he, taking a pull of the spirits; and giving the health of his reverence out o' compliment to me, because he thought I was a Catholic. As he said the words, down drops an eight-inch shell between us. "Murder !" says I, rowlin' myself down the hill, like a butter-firkin. "What's that?" says Charley, who was always a stupid divil, and never could bear to be interrupted in his drink. Och before I could make him

sensible, bang went the shell! and when Pat and I got up, we found Charley as dead as a mackarel; and dinner, drink, and Pat Dogherty's new cloak-case, blown regularly to the divil! No wonder I hate the whiz of them- -Well, how do ye find yerself?"

"Oh-pretty well; but a

confounded dizziness of the head

"Well,―take another drop. Look round, Mark-isn't that the name ye answer to? Turn a man or two over, and you'll find a fresh canteen, for this one's empty."

Indeed, there was no great difficulty in obtaining a liberal supply; for the hollow that Peter Crotty had selected as uniting safety with comfort, was thickly studded with dead and dying men; and there was scarcely a corpse, particularly a Frenchman's, from which a canteen was not obtainable.

In the mean time, the roar of battle gradually subsided into a spattering fire of musketry, interspersed by the booming of heavy guns, as the horse artillery hung upon the French rear, and cannonaded the dense masses of broken soldiery who hurried off in the direction of Salvatierra. But, lightened of their arms, and covered by their cavalry who still showed a steady front, they reached Metauco, closely followed; there night ended the pursuit, and the victors and the vanquished claimed that season for repose which previous fatigue had rendered so desirable to both.

There is no defeat on ecord, in which a beaten army lost so much and lost so little, contradictory as the statement may appear. The whole materiel of war, the entire park of artillery, with stores, ammunition, trophies, treasure, and the most enormous collection of plunder that ever an invading army attempted to carry from the country it had for years despoiled, fell into the hands of the victors, or rather into those of the degraded wretches who followed them,—while in men the French loss scarcely exceeded that of the conquerors.

Before we had been an hour on the field, we were picked up, stowed away in a French calech, from which a danseuse on King Joseph's establishment had been ejected—and carried through the wreck of the enemy's plunder and military stores, into a city it had only

vacated at midday. Mr. Crotty's wound was not very important, as the ball had passed clean through the thigh, and the hemorrhage been stopped by a proper ligature. Mine was a more serious accident, and gave me considerable annoyance for several weeks after it occurred. It is true that I had much reason to be thankful, if I would only put faith in the report of my medical attendant; for he demonstrated, clear as an axiom, that had the ball struck me the eighteenth part of an inch in "fuller front," it would have popped through the "os frontis" to a moral, and I should have been then "past praying for."

Three weeks elapsed-the painful effects occasioned by the con tusion gradually subsided, and within a month I was perfectly convalescent. As to Peter Crotty, his disabled member was speedily restored -and, at the end of a fortnight, he could have danced the patero-pee. One thing occasioned some surprise. Lord Wellington, in the excitement of his victory, forgot to make personal inquiries after his old partner's state of health,-and although his hospitality embraced the élite of his prisoners, and even the captured ladies were guests at his table during his brief sojourn at Vittoria, by some unaccountable oversight, a cover for Peter Crotty was forgotten-and if an invitation had been sent him for a quiet rubber at head quarters, unfortunately, it never reached its destination. Crotty, however, ascribed this apparent forgetfulness to its true cause a press of business-and on one occasion, when we nearly ran against his lordship in the street, Peter bolted round the corner, feeling, very properly, that greetings in the market-place consumed valuable time, and between old friends were quite unnecessary.

The subsequent operations after the victory of the 21st of June, though not very important in themselves, proved the forerunners of great events. Soult came from Germany, by Napoleon's order, to assume the chief command and rally the beaten armies. Joseph Buonaparte's royal puppetism ended, and he retired into Franceand Wellington followed up his victory by advancing to the Pyrenees, blockading Pampeluna, and regularly investing San Sebastian.

At Vittoria the mixed character of which an army is composed, was strikingly exhibited. Never, in the history of modern warfare, did defeat tempt the cupidity of the soldier with more extensive or more valuable booty,—and, to use the words of the historian, "the fighting troops marched upon gold and silver without stooping to pick it up.' But to others, the display of wealth was too trying for their moral endurance to withstand-the onward step of victory was stayed for filthy plunder, and, to the eternal disgrace of the delinquents, it was known that some officers, forgetting caste and honour, shared in "the disgraceful gain." The evil consequences were so mischievous, as in some degree to paralyse the subsequent operations, and rob Vittoria of what would have otherwise been its grand results. The soldiers, instead of preparing food, and resting themselves after the battle, dis persed in the night to plunder, and were so fatigued, that when the rain came on next day, they were incapable of marching, and the allied army had more stragglers than the beaten one. Eighteen days

A A 2

ง

after the victory, twelve thousand five hundred men, chiefly British, were absent, most of them marauding in the mountains.*

No wonder, then, that the promptest nieans were used to thin the hospitals of the sick and wounded, and forward the convalescent to their regiments. Peter Crotty had been declared "ready for action;" and with some fifty privates and non-commissioned officers pronounced "food for gunpowder" again. I determined to keep him company,and on the morning of the 18th of July, we quitted Vittoria, a month after we had entered it, and took the route to rejoin the fourth division in the Pyrenees. We reached Leyra on the 22d, and then learned that San Sebastian had been sufficiently battered to warrant an assault-and, as it was generally believed, the attempt would be made next day.

Here was a noble opening for young ambition. Within a sharp ride of a beleaguered city-and it, too, on the very point of being carried by assault! Why, my father was a very prophet-and the glorious contingency he had only regarded with the eye of hope, was absolutely thrown by fortune in my way. I was also a free agent—and while Peter Crotty, "a man under authority," of necessity, headed towards the mountains with "his charge of foot," I had only to turn to the sea-and if I pleased, gain laurels in the breach, or there get a quietus." I consulted the fosterer-and he at once declared that it would not only be shameful but sinful, to let slip an opportunity of the kind. "for the Lord only knew when such luck would fall in our way again!"

66

Peter Crotty was taken into the number of our counsellors—and he confirmed Mark Antony's reasoning to the very letter-accompanied by a long jeremiade at being prohibited by duty from engaging in an agreeable excursion. He, Peter, would never forget Badajoz→ Lord! what fun there was after it—he did not particularise the fun that was at it, nor detail the pleasant accompaniments of men being blown up by the company. He, Peter, had been wounded, and resided afterwards at a widow's house-a friendlier little woman he never met with, she was better to him than a bad step-mother-they went regularly to mass-and he, Peter, was happy as the day was long. Indeed, he had great doubts about the propriety of marrying her at once-but her husband, not having "gone to glory," but to Mexico, although he had not written for six months, still the devil, meaning the husband aforesaid-might be alive after all." Oh! blessed Mary! what fun you'll have!" concluded Peter. "You may rob a church, murder a bishop, and bad luck to the inquiry, good nor bad, afterwards.”

Pleasure thus unexpectedly presented, and accompanied with such brilliant advantages, was not to be declined; and as I had recovered my lost horse, and procured a stout mule for the fosterer, we took the road to glory-namely, the cross one running through Gozueta to San Sebastian.

The defeat at Vittoria rendered the maintenance of this ancient fortress an object of great importance to the French. Hitherto the place had been greatly neglected, and even a part of its artillery

* Wellington Despatches.