The Sun.
London, England, 1828-11-05 00:00:00

BATTLE OP VITTORIA.

" Though no orders had bees issued, the army
were aware of the intention of attack.• The
officers having refreshed themselves from the
fatigues of their march, stood conversing.
groups, sagaciously discussing the projects of the
advcrse Generals, and discriminating between the
chances of failure and the probabilities of suc-
cess. I remarked, I thought, that the certainty
of approaching battle had brought some change
of manner and expression in my brother officers.
They bore about them the appearance of excite-
ment, spoke with an unwanted energy of vocal
intonation, and performed the most common and
perfunctory acts with a vivacious rapacity, for
which their general manner was not remarkable.
There -were three of us that night,—friends,
messmates, companions, fellow-sufferers in diffi-
culty and privation, partakers of the same
pleasures, sharers of the same 'dangers, united
together in love and amity by a thousand co-
incidencea of taste and disposition ; and though
differing in much, yet never separated or estranged
by accidental collisions of jagnaent and opinion.
There were three of us that night, who, after
retiring to our tent, partook together of a soldier's
simple fare, and with smiling faces, yet with
beating hearts, drained the wine cup to the
success of our country's arms on the field of
deadly struggle on which the morning sun
was about to dawn. To two of these three
it was 1!:e last meal of which they were
ever destined to partake on earth." . • ..
Well, our part of the battle, my dear aunt,
the tide war rolled on with increasing volume
and imsetncsity. So resolute was the attack- of
these great-coated gentry, that a part of the bri-
gade gave way, and retired for a short distance in
confusion. At that moment Sir Rowland Hill
came up at full speed. The character of Sir It.
Hill is to me one of the deepest of human enig-
mas. No moment could be more trying than
that in which he rode up to the height, already
red with the work of slaughter. SymptOms of
confusion had already shewn themselves in its de-
fenders. On maintaining the position we occu-
pied depended in a great measure the whole fate
of the battle. Then—just•then it was, that I
had an opportunity of examining his counte-
nance,—l declare to you, that it was" calm as I
had ever seen it in times of tranquillity and in.
action. In eye, cheek, or brow, no traces of
anxiety or apprehension were discernable. HiS
round massive countenance had in nothing changed
its usual expression of deliberate and tranquil self
possession. Neitherhis motions nor the tone of
his voice betrayed the smallest symptoms of un-
usual excitement ; and there was visible, in his
outward man, no demonstration of that time and
concentration of internal -energies, on the suc-
cessful exercise of which so much depended."
" The portion of the brigade which
had been thrown into temporary disorder soon
rallied, however, and once more stood brave and
undaunted on the heights, ready to repel the at-
tack, or to carry forward the war into the ranks
of the enemy:' . . • •
While this was proceeding on the right, the
centre of the enemy's line had been made the
object of vehement attack by Sir Thomas Pic-
ton. Let me again pause a moment. in my
narrative to draw another pot trait, differing some-
what from that I have already given you of Sir
ft. Hill. Do you observe in a group, at a' short
distance on the left, tall upright figure of a man
seated on a a strong bald-faced, wall-eyed, chest-
nut horse? Hesia dressed in plain blue sur-
tout, rather ancient and thread-bare, and above a
countenance which, besides being naturally hard
featured, it is abundantly evident has not, on this
morning at least, to say nothing of the preced-
ing, undergone the operation of shaving ; he
wears a cocked hat embrowned by the sun, and
without a feather. There is a cloak before him,
strapped to the saddle bow ; and slung across his
shoulder, he has a prospect glass in a leathern
case. There is the true military air for you. See
how upright he sits on his saddle. Were the
(nuzzle of one of the enemy's cannon within a
yard of him, that manyou may swear it, would nor
stir an inch.—Now, what do you take him for,
ran good aunt ? An adjutant of the old school,
perhaps ; one, who in obtaining a commis-
aiol, becomes likewise invested with the brevet
yank of gentleman, and who still retains, amid
the novel dignities of his recent promotion, the
manners of a sergeant ? No, the guess will not
do ; nor if you take unit for a brigade major, or
a commiessary, or a provost marshal, "will you be
much nearer the mark. Look at him again, and
you will observe an air of dignity about him, an oc.
easional attitude of command, which must knock
even the possibility of the truth of your conjec-
tures at once on the head. But I will puzzle
you no longer; the man you observe is no other
than Sir Thomas Picton ; and now you know
him, I think you will gaze on him with more
interest than formerly. - The tall thin man,
mounted on a grey horse, to whom he has just
been speaking, who a moment ago gallopped off,
is Sir Lowry Cole ; and those two officers beside
)riat are the assistant adjutant-general of his divi-
ci: his
the
sion, and one of his aides-de.-camp,
Imagine, therefore, that Sir T. Picton and
division are already on the advance, and that you
see them cross the Zadorra by two bridges o
roads leading to Mendoza; which by seine
unpardonaiile oversight on the part of the French
general
ve nut been destroyed. I hey have
, .
A-49 sooner done so, followed by the divisions of
General Cole and Lord Dalhousie, and a bri-
gade of German Legion,
~;, than a fierce and
rapid att..- made on the heights occupied by
Ore enemy. These are lined by a numerous ar-
tillery, s.:iich open a tremendous fire on them as.
they advasee. Whole ranks of the column are.,
mowed ILwn,—tho fire of Tartarus itself could;,
not be more deadly and destructive. Where
Crow is Picton l He is the very leading man of
the division—in the foremost post of honour •
and of danger." . After giving an account
seilch the impetuous attack of those under the
comotand of Sir R. Hill and Sir T. Picton
pro-
tltrced, she author proceeds to describe the :epee
-o,Sions of the left, under the command of Sir T.
cimb„„,. As he has not given- a sketcts of his
person, we shall proceed with his remarks on the
sanguinary contest in general Nevei 'did I
it, my ' said Capt. Moggridge, ufitietgo a
day of greater exhauition and, latiguk, Since
morstened my
morning, not a drop of water had
throat, my whole frame seemed arid awl parched
up,—my tongue seemed glued- to my palate."
On then we went ..pell inch; licher
alceigr, nian and horse, great'
guns and small,
ligtrt bob and grenadier, thOiigh mud and over
ditsh, with tired limbs andjungry stomachs, to
catch the enemy if we could, and give him a '
dose of British bullets, What the cavalry did I
know not, but I know that we, poor infantry,
did little or nothing, for the Frenchmen were too
fleet for us ; and we got no more than an occa-
sional distant view of. them in the windings of
the road. The results, however, were as brilliant
As could be wished." . t‘ We continued

our pursuit of the enemy for about two leagues
beyond Vittoria, where we bivouacked for the
night. We no sooner had taken up our posi-
tion, than tired, jaded, starved, I cast myself on
the ground in a temporary, yet universal para-
lysis of all powers .and energies. Never did
bivouac afford fewer appliances for comfort,—
yet these are not wanted by the tired soldier.—
Think you, my dear aunt, that his sleep resem-
bles the light and fragile slumbers which
nightly smooth your senses into forget-
fulness, beneath your tester of pink damask,
and down quilt ?—slumbers which the tick-
ing of a clock, or the softest whisper in
your apartment, or the pattering rain on the
window-panes, would break and dissipate in a
moment ? No, no, believe me, it is nothing
like this. The sleep of the worn campaigner is
very different from that of an amiable and re-
spectable maiden lady, whose fatigues during the
day have proceeded from an airing in a 'carriage,
or a walk in the shrubbery, or perhaps an extra
rubber at whist or back-gait-nylon in the evening.
It is a sleep, deep, dreamless and imperturbable
—a still, calm, unbroken sabbath of all his facul-
ties and senses_ Fire a pistol at his ear, and he
hears it not ;—let the glare of a thousand torches
' be concentrated on his eyelids, and they move
not ;—let his stony bed be shaken with the con-
cussion of an earthquake, and, beyond an occa-
sional snore, he will sinew no signs of animation.
But try
,him with the sound of drum or trumpet,
and, with curses on the earliness of parade, mut-
tered in something like a grunt, lie springs at
once on his feet, restored. as by magic, to all the
functions, pwwers, and attributes, of a i:entient
and living man."