CAMPAIGNS OF A CORNET.-ÑO. I.

THE many valiant names with which our pedigree was enriched, commencing with Ezekiel Thunder, adjutant in the Parliamentary army, who fell at Cropready Bridge, and terminating with Captain John Thunder, who died of the cholera morbus in the campaign against Tippoo Saib, together with the warlike effigies of many a " Captain or colonel, or knight in arms," that filled an old lumber-room in my father's house, had early inspired me with an inclination for a military life. Eleven hundred pounds procured me a cornetcy. During the meridian of my martial ardour, one fine summer evening, a letter of very portentous dimensions was put into my hands. My eye immediately caught the authoritative words "On his Majesty's service”— "Commander-in-chief's office;" and breaking the large official seal with eagerness, I read as follows: "Sir, I have the honour to inform you, that his Royal Highness the Prince Regent has been pleased to appoint you to a cornetcy in the.... regiment of dragoons, and I am directed by the Commander-in-chief to order you to proceed without delay to Portsmouth, with your horses, to join a detachment of your regiment, under the command of Captain Baron Holster, in order to embark for the army under the command of his excellency Lieut.-General the Earl of Wellington. On your reaching Portsmouth, you will be pleased to report your arrival to the Adjutant-general on that station. I have the honour to be, &c. &c." "To Cornet Julius Wood Thunder, Hall, Northamptonshire."

After bidding a hasty adieu, and receiving the usual cautions against the dangers of my new situation, I hastened to London, to purchase my paraphernalia and equipments, and in about a week's time from the receipt of my orders I arrived at Portsmouth. I was informed by the adjutant-general, to whom I made the usual report, that the detachment of my regiment was then in a neighbouring village, where I must immediately join it. I proceeded instantly to the quarters of the commanding officer, at the Spread Eagle inn, where, without delay, I was ushered into the presence of Captain Baron Holster. It was about eight o'clock on a July evening, and the captain was in the full enjoyment of all the delights which a pipe and a bottle can bestow. Taking the pipe from his mouth, he arose on my entrance, and received me with great courtesy. As usual with military men, we soon became intimate: I speedily fathomed my companion's character. He might truly be called a soldier of fortune, for money seemed his great object, and profit and glory were in his vocabulary synonymous. Mars and Venus appeared to exercise a joint dominion over him, "both them he served, and of their train was he."

We were engaged the whole of the ensuing day in the embarkation of our horses. Surely some better mode might be discovered than swinging the noble animals in the air by ropes and pullies, to their infinite terror. It was surprising that no accident happened. We rode that night at anchor at Spithead, with the wooden walls of Old England all around us. At day-break the next morning, convoy-signals were hoisted on board a frigate, for all ships proceeding with our convoy to prepare for sea. It was nearly noon before all the vessels were under weigh, and we shaped our course through the beautiful passage of the

Needles, between the Isle of Wight and the main-land. Before dusk we could but imperfectly distinguish the cliffs of Albion, which ere morning had entirely disappeared. As usual in such cases, I suffered all the extremitics of sea-sickness, which vanquished even the bravest of us all. Our accommodations and provisions were tolerable, considering our situation; and notwithstanding the dull monotony of sky and ocean, the novelty of a sea-voyage furnished us with considerable

amusement.

On the fourth day after leaving Spithead, to the infinite joy of all on board, we discovered the mountains of Spain, at the distance of eighty miles, according to the captain's information. It was, however, four days afterwards ere our feet touched the Spanish soil. As we approached the shore, every eye was strained to discover the flag which floated on the summit of the sea-girt castle of St. Sebastian. Although we could not immediately distinguish whether the Gallic standard still maintained its lofty station, yet the constant cannonading which we heard, and the volumes of smoke which the land-breeze wafted towards us, gave us hope that we were not yet too late to share in the glories of the capture of the castle of St. Sebastian. On the morning of the day on which our convoy left us, the cannonading entirely ceased; but we still observed the tri-coloured flag waving above the battlements, when in one moment the flag-staff appeared perfectly bare, and in another, it was replaced by the British standard. One shout of exultation burst from the different vessels which were within view of this triumphant spectacle; but I must confess that my own patriotic feelings were dashed with a tinge of regret; for, heavy-dragoon as I was, I had set my heart on being the first to drag down this pestilential ensign from its "bad eminence," and bearing it home, to hang in dread remembrance of my valour-fit companion for the fillebig which my great grandfather won from " a naked Pict," at the battle of Preston-pans, and the cannon-ball which my maternal uncle carried away with him from the siege of Quebec.

The signal was made by the commodore on the morning of his leaving us, for the masters of the transports to proceed on board his ship, where they received orders to land the troops at Passages, but to anchor in the bay of St. Sebastian's, or, to use his own phrase, "to bring up in four-fathom water," until the harbour was clear. We anchored about two o'clock in the afternoon, and the officers immediately proceeded on shore. The town and castle of St. Sebastian are nearly surrounded by water, connected by a narrow isthmus with the mainland. The bay lies to the west of the town, and in the midst of it rises the beautiful island of Santa Clara. The first attack on the town was made by our batteries, formed on the sand-banks, to the east of the place. After dislodging the enemy from a convent on the shore, which formed a sort of out-post to the town, and from their position in the island, our batteries on sea and land had played upon the castle and town from all sides; and after having been twice stormed, the town had at last yielded.

As we stepped upon shore, we found The contrast between the people we had were now surrounded, was most striking.

ourselves in a new world. left, and those by whom we The quay was covered with

Spanish women, selling strings of onions, bread, wine, and cider; their long plaited hair, reaching entirely down their backs, and their complexions of a sallow hue, impressing us with no very favourable idea of the vaunted Spanish dames. At a short distance from us, near the gate, a Spanish officer was marshalling his men, which, like Falstaff's soldiers, seemed excellent "food for powder." Their dress was not remarkable for its uniformity. The French soldiers who had fallen in action, had been stripped to furnish this motley corps; and wherever the eagle appeared in their appointments, it had been reversed. The commander, who seemed well worthy of the high station which he filled, perceiving we were Englishmen, took pains to let us know that his warriors were 66 Espagnoles," (a fact of which very little doubt could be entertained,) by continually addressing them by the title of primiero regimento d' Araggon." The appearance of every thing on the outside of the town was highly interesting and amusing; but the spectacle as we proceeded into the town became disgusting and terrific, to eyes which had not been accustomed to gaze upon the stern features of war. The houses were levelled with the ground, and amidst the ruins lay the dead bodies of English and French, in the last stage of putrefaction. Shocked as we were at this scene, the horrors which presented themselves on the breach were indescribable. The dead lay piled

in heaps; and we were forced to step over the bodies of our brave fellow-countrymen, which had lain parching beneath a fervent sun from the time of the storming of the town.

Sickening as the sight was to all of us, it did not seem to affect the stomachs of the Spanish soldiers, who sat, with the utmost composure, eating their meal, which consisted of a dried fish called baccalao, on the dead bodies, which supplied all the usual furniture of a salle à manger. We were fortunate enough, at the moment, to meet with an intelligent English officer of the First Regiment, who had been personally engaged in the storm, He pointed out to us the bodies of three sergeants who had formed part of the forlorn hope, and who seemed to have all fallen at the same instant. The officer who led the forlorn hope escaped the first onset, but was afterwards killed in the town by the enemies' fire. Our informant described very minutely the details of the attack. He pointed out to us the place where the French, by blowing up a mine too suddenly, had destroyed several hundreds of their own men.

We afterwards paid a visit to the castle, where we perceived the dreadful extremities to which the French had been reduced. Our perpetual firing had compelled them to excavate the ground, that they might obtain temporary repose and security. The castle presented nothing remarkable, except a clear spring of fresh water, which rose from the summit of the hill.

We returned to our vessel with no very favourable impression of the pleasures of a siege. The Baron frankly confessed that he by no means coveted the honourable fate of those heroes who had" filled the breach up with our English dead"; and shrewdly observed, that, considering the poverty of the land, he could not discover what honour there was in being engaged in a storming-party. During our dinner he appeared remarkably contemplative, but after a few hours smoking,

and close application to the waters of life, his martial spirit seemed to brighten within him; and between the whiffs of his pipe, he called the storming of St. Sebastian's a mere volunteer-day to some in which he had been no inconsiderable actor.

On rising the ensuing morning, I found our vessel just entering the harbour of Passages. The mouth of the harbour is not visible until you approach within a few yards of it, and you proceed nearly two miles up a narrow creek, running between rocks of stupendous height. After disembarking our party, we marched with our detachment to a farm-house, or, rather, what would be called a hovel in England, about three miles from Passages, and in this miserable place, in which only two beds were to be found, which were already sufficiently tenanted by various insects, we were expected to find accommodation for two officers and fifty men. The fumes of brandy and tobacco generally lulled the Baron to sleep long before he retired to his couch; but, for my own part, during the whole time we were quartered in this wretched spot, I knew not what it was to enjoy an hour's slumber during the night.

The quality of our first day's dinner was pretty much upon a par with our logement. Our fare consisted of ration pork, so hard and so fat that no teeth or stomach of ordinary strength could away with it. Cabbage of a saffron hue supplied the place of other vegetables. To counterbalance these privations, we had the privilege, like Gil Blas at Sangrado's, of drinking water à discretion, and we certainly did find it un dissolvement universel. To one, who had been used to call a dinner at Long's or Stevens's a bore, and who had professed himself satisfied with Jacquiere's cookery, such a banquet did not possess many attractions. The Baron, with a grin of singular expression, frequently exclaimed, during our feast, ""Tish very goot!" Towards the middle of the following day, I paid a visit to the town of Passages, in order to learn some intelligence from the army, and to purchase an animal to carry my baggage. On arriving in the town, the novelty of the scene was extremely amusing. The head-quarters of Lord Wellington were then about eight miles from Passages, and the town at that time formed a sort of depôt for provisions. Parties- of dragoons escorting provisions, Commissaries, French prisoners marching through, Generals departing for England, Portuguese and Spanish soldiers, servants buying provisions, passing and repassing before my eyes, gave the scene the appearance of a masquerade. Every one seemed regardless of the occupations of his neighbour. In one portion of the town, a party of German hussars had made a regular encampment, and were busily engaged dressing their horses, cooking their coarse viands, and smoking their long cum-de-mer pipes in the open air, quite as contented beneath the canopy of Heaven, as if they were housed under the most hospitable roof. Advancing a little farther, we saw several hundred French prisoners, guarded by a detachment of British infantry, headed by three officers, two of whom were mounted upon mules, and the other walking. In point of speed, these pedestrians seemed likely to outstrip their mounted leaders, as the miserable animals which carried them had many points in common with Yorick's mare. The clothing of our brave soldiers, which, by conjecture rather than by its present appearance, we judged to have been of the scarlet huc, had, by its numer

ous patchings, at length assumed the semblance of an harlequin's coat, while the long coats of the officers, which, in their original state, had been of a grey colour, by the service they had seen, and long exposure to the sun, had become thread-bare and brown: the French prisoners were certainly horrid-looking fellows; their unshorn beards, and their long moustaches, gave little encouragement to the unfledged valour of a stripling Cornet.

Cui frons turgida cornibus

Primis, et Venerem et prælia destinat.

All the detachments which we saw, seemed well content with the accommodations which were provided for them al fresco, with the exception of some newly-arrived English hussars, who appeared to entertain too lively a remembrance of the comforts of Hyde Park Barracks to allow them to think of taking up their lodgings" on the cold ground;" and after a vain struggle, for some hours, to procure the shelter of a roof, they were marched forward without having enjoyed even that repose which their less delicate companions had found on the cold pavement of the streets of Passages. The accounts which we received from the army were strangely contradictory. Now we heard that there was no doubt that we should be forced to retreat into Portugal; and now we were told, that within a few days we should be feasting in Paris. Every one seemed competent to approve or censure the plans of Lord Wellington, while all were blessed with an equal degree of ignorance; indeed, the English newspapers were, at this time, the only means by which we could gain any intelligence of our own motions-so necessarily confined was the information of each individual. This state of things was precisely what is described by Walter Scott

When high events are on the gale,

Each hour brings a varying tale.

After making a purchase of all the delicacies which Passages afforded-namely, mutton, bread, and vegetables, and cheapening a few baggage-animals, which were enormously dear, I returned to our quarters, where I found the Baron, with his three horses in his hand, allowing them to crop the heads of a field of fine maize at the back of the house, never once adverting to the exploded doctrine of meum and tuum. In short the Baron was an old campaigner, and knew how to provide victuals both for himself and his horses. This, however, is a knowledge which is very speedily acquired in war; of which I witnessed an instance on my return from Passages. I beheld-oh! tell it not in St. James's-publish it not in Bond Street-I beheld the Hon. Captain Counterscarp, the amiable, the accomplished Captain Counterscarp of the Guards, who always held it to be highly derogatory even to speak to an acquaintance who carried an umbrella-I beheld him, lost to all sense of shame, in his right hand bearing a leg of mutton, and in his left a haversack of cabbages!

Our detachment having received orders to remain a fortnight, longer at this miserable station, for the purpose of refreshing the horses, and it occurring to me that the delay would by no means be productive of the same effects to myself, so unceasingly was I tormented by the lively activity of my body-guard, I resolved, with the permission of