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Notice and Justification, &c., &c. Page i

Lord Wellington blockades Pampeluna, besieges St. Sebastian--Operations on the eastern coast of Spain--General Elio's misconduct--Sir John Murray sails to attack Taragona--Colonel Prevot takes St. Felippe de Balaguer--Second siege of Taragona--Suchet and Maurice Mathieu endeavour to relieve the place--Sir John Murray raises the siege--Embarks with the loss of his guns--Disembarks again at St. Felippe de Balaguer--Lord William Bentinck arrives--Sir John Murray's trial--Observations Page 1

Danger of Sicily--Averted by Murat's secret defection from the emperor--Lord William Bentinck re-embarks--His design of attacking the city of Valencia frustrated--Del Parque is defeated on the Xucar--The Anglo-Sicilians disembark at Alicant--Suchet prepares to attack the allies--Prevented by the battle of Vittoria--Abandons Valencia--Marches towards Zaragoza--Clauzel retreats to France--Paris evacuates Zaragoza--Suchet retires to Taragona--Mines the walls--Lord William Bentinck passes the Ebro--Secures the Col de Balaguer--Invests Taragona--Partial insurrection in Upper Catalonia--Combat of Salud--Del Parque joins lord William Bentinck who projects an attack upon Suchet's cantonments--Suchet concentrates his army--Is joined by Decaen--Advances--The allies retreat to the mountains--Del Parque invests Tortoza--His rear-guard attacked by the garrison while passing the Ebro--Suchet blows up the walls of Taragona--Lord William desires to besiege Tortoza--Hears that Suchet has detached troops--Sends Del Parque's army to join lord Wellington--Advances to Villa Franca--Combat of Ordal--The allies retreat--Lord Frederick Bentinck fights with the French general Myers and wounds him--Lord William returns to Sicily--Observations 33

Siege of Sebastian--Convent of Bartolomeo stormed--Assault on the place fails--Causes thereof--Siege turned into a blockade, and the guns embarked at Passages--French make a successful sally 65

Soult appointed the emperor's lieutenant--Arrives at Bayonne--Joseph goes to Paris--Sketch of Napoleon's political and military situation--His greatness of mind--Soult's activity--Theatre of operations described--Soult resolves to succour Pampeluna--Relative positions and numbers of the contending armies described 86

Soult attacks the right of the allies--Combat of Roncesvalles--Combat of Linzoain--Count D'Erlon attacks the allies' right centre--Combat of Maya--General Hill takes a position at Irueta--General Picton and Cole retreat down the Val de Zubiri--They turn at Huarte and offer battle--Lord Wellington arrives--Combat of the 27th--First battle of Sauroren--Various movements--D'Erlon joins Soult who attacks general Hill--Second battle of Sauroren--Foy is cut off from the main army--Night march of the light division--Soult retreats--Combat of Do?a Maria--Dangerous position of the French at San Estevan--Soult marches down the Bidassoa--Forced march of the light division--Terrible scene near the bridge of Yanzi--Combats of Echallar and Ivantelly--Narrow escape of lord Wellington--Observations 109

New positions of the armies--Lord Melville's mismanagement of the naval co-operation--Siege of St. Sebastian--Progress of the second attack 179

Storming of St. Sebastian--Lord Wellington calls for volunteers from the first fourth and light divisions--The place is assaulted and taken--The town burned--The castle is bombarded and surrenders--Observations 197

Soult's views and positions during the siege described--He endeavours to succour the place--Attacks lord Wellington--Combats of San Marcial and Vera--The French are repulsed the same day that San Sebastian is stormed--Soult resolves to adopt a defensive system--Observations 218

The duke of Berri proposes to invade France promising the aid of twenty thousand insurgents--Lord Wellington's views on this subject--His personal acrimony against Napoleon--That monarch's policy and character defended--Dangerous state of affairs in Catalonia--Lord Wellington designs to go there himself, but at the desire of the allied sovereigns and the English government resolves to establish a part of his army in France--His plans retarded by accidents and bad weather--Soult unable to divine his project--Passage of the Bidassoa--Second combat of Vera--Colonel Colborne's great presence of mind--Gallant action of lieutenant Havelock--The French lose the redoubt of Sarre and abandon the great Rhune--Observations 239

Soult retakes the redoubt of Sarre--Wellington organizes the army in three great divisions under sir Rowland Hill, marshal Beresford, and sir John Hope--Disinterested conduct of the last-named officer--Soult's immense entrenchments described--His correspondence with Suchet--Proposes to retake the offensive and unite their armies in Aragon--Suchet will not accede to his views and makes inaccurate statements--Lord Wellington, hearing of advantages gained by the allied sovereigns in Germany, resolves to invade France--Blockade and fall of Pampeluna--Lord Wellington organizes a brigade under lord Aylmer to besiege Santona, but afterwards changes his design 271

Political state of Portugal--Violence, ingratitude, and folly of the government of that country--Political state of Spain--Various factions described, their violence, insolence, and folly--Scandalous scenes at Cadiz--Several Spanish generals desire a revolution--Lord Wellington describes the miserable state of the country--Anticipates the necessity of putting down the Cortez by force--Resigns his command of the Spanish armies--The English ministers propose to remove him to Germany--The new Cortez reinstate him as generalissimo on his own terms--He expresses his fears that the cause will finally fail and advises the English ministers to withdraw the British army 295

War in the south of France--Soult's political difficulties--Privations of the allied troops--Lord Wellington appeals to their military honour with effect--Averse to offensive operations, but when Napoleon's disasters in Germany became known, again yields to the wishes of the allied sovereigns--His dispositions of attack retarded--They are described--Battle of the Nivelle--Observations--Deaths and characters of Mr. Edward Freer and colonel Thomas Lloyd 326

Soult occupies the entrenched camp of Bayonne, and the line of the Nive river--Lord Wellington unable to pursue his victory from the state of the roads--Bridge-head of Cambo abandoned by the French--Excesses of the Spanish troops--Lord Wellington's indignation--He sends them back to Spain--Various skirmishes in front of Bayonne--The generals J. Wilson and Vandeleur are wounded--Mina plunders the Val de Baygorry--Is beaten by the national guards--Passage of the Nive and battles in front of Bayonne--Combat of the 10th--Combat of the 11th--Combat of the 12th--Battle of St. Pierre--Observations 363

Respective situations and views of lord Wellington and Soult--Partizan warfare--The Basques of the Val de Baygorry excited to arms by the excesses of Mina's troops--General Harispe takes the command of the insurgents--Clauzel advances beyond the Bidouze river--General movements--Partizan combats--Excesses committed by the Spaniards--Lord Wellington reproaches their generals--His vigorous and resolute conduct--He menaces the French insurgents of the valleys with fire and sword and the insurrection subsides--Soult hems the allies right closely--Partizan combats continued--Remarkable instances of the habits established between the French and British soldiers of the light division--Shipwrecks on the coast 410

Political state of Portugal--Political state of Spain--Lord Wellington advises the English government to prepare for a war with Spain and to seize St. Sebastian as a security for the withdrawal of the British and Portuguese troops--The seat of government and the new Cortez are removed to Madrid--The duke of San Carlos arrives secretly with the treaty of Valen?ay--It is rejected by the Spanish regency and Cortez--Lord Wellington's views on the subject 425

Political state of Napoleon--Guileful policy of the allied sovereigns--M. de St. Aignan--General reflections--Unsettled policy of the English ministers--They neglect lord Wellington--He remonstrates and exposes the denuded state of his army 440

Continuation of the war in the eastern provinces--Suchet's erroneous statements--Sir William Clinton repairs Taragona--Advances to Villa Franca--Suchet endeavours to surprise him--Fails--The French cavalry cut off an English detachment at Ordal--The duke of San Carlos passes through the French posts--Copons favourable to his mission--Clinton and Manso endeavour to cut off the French troops at Molino del Rey--They fail through the misconduct of Copons--Napoleon recalls a great body of Suchet's troops--Whereupon he reinforces the garrison of Barcelona and retires to Gerona--Van Halen--He endeavours to beguile the governor of Tortoza--Fails--Succeeds at Lerida, Mequinenza, and Monzon--Sketch of the siege of Monzon--It is defended by the Italian soldier St. Jaques for one hundred and forty days--Clinton and Copons invest Barcelona--The beguiled garrisons of Lerida, Mequinenza, and Monzon, arrive at Martorel--Are surrounded and surrender on terms--Capitulation violated by Copons--King Ferdinand returns to Spain--His character--Clinton breaks up his army--His conduct eulogised--Lamentable sally from Barcelona--The French garrisons beyond the Ebro return to France and Habert evacuates Barcelona--Fate of the prince of Conti and the duchess of Bourbon--Siege of Santona 475

Napoleon recalls several divisions of infantry and cavalry from Soult's army--Embarrassments of that marshal--Mr. Batbedat a banker of Bayonne offers to aid the allies secretly with money and provisions--La Roche Jacquelin and other Bourbon partizans arrive at the allies' head-quarter--The duke of Angoul?me arrives there--Lord Wellington's political views--General reflections--Soult embarrassed by the hostility of the French people--Lord Wellington embarrassed by the hostility of the Spaniards--Soult's remarkable project for the defence of France--Napoleon's reasons for neglecting it put hypothetically--Lord Wellington's situation suddenly ameliorated--His wise policy, foresight, and diligence--Resolves to throw a bridge over the Adour below Bayonne, and to drive Soult from that river--Soult's system of defence--Numbers of the contending armies--Passage of the Gaves--Combat of Garris--Lord Wellington forces the line of the Bidouze and Gave of Mauleon--Soult takes the line of the Gave de Oleron and resolves to change his system of operation 505

Lord Wellington arrests his movements and returns in person to St. Jean de Luz to throw his bridge over the Adour--Is prevented by bad weather and returns to the Gave of Mauleon--Passage of the Adour by sir John Hope--Difficulty of the operation--The flotilla passes the bar and enters the river--The French sally from Bayonne but are repulsed and the stupendous bridge is cast--Citadel invested after a severe action--Lord Wellington passes the Gave of Oleron and invests Navarrens--Soult concentrates his army at Orthes--Beresford passes the Gave de Pau near Pereyhorade--Battle of Orthes--Soult changes his line of operations--Combat of Aire--Observations 536

Soult's perilous situation--He falls back to Tarbes--Napoleon sends him a plan of operations--His reply and views stated--Lord Wellington's embarrassments--Soult's proclamation--Observations upon it--Lord Wellington calls up Freyre's Gallicians and detaches Beresford against Bordeaux--The mayor of that city revolts from Napoleon--Beresford enters Bordeaux and is followed by the duke of Angoul?me--Fears of a reaction--The mayor issues a false proclamation--Lord Wellington expresses his indignation--Rebukes the duke of Angoul?me--Recalls Beresford but leaves lord Dalhousie with the seventh division and some cavalry--Decaen commences the organization of the army of the Gironde--Admiral Penrose enters the Garonne--Remarkable exploit of the commissary Ogilvie--Lord Dalhousie passes the Garonne and the Dordogne and defeats L'Huillier at Etauliers--Admiral Penrose destroys the French flotilla--The French set fire to their ships of war--The British seamen and marines land and destroy all the French batteries from Blaye to the mouth of the Garonne 580

Wellington's and Soult's situations and forces described--Folly of the English ministers--Freyre's Gallicians and Ponsonby's heavy cavalry join lord Wellington--He orders Giron's Andalusians and Del Parque's army to enter France--Soult suddenly takes the offensive--Combats of cavalry--Partizan expedition of Captain Dania--Wellington menaces the peasantry with fire and sword if they take up arms--Soult retires--Lord Wellington advances--Combat of Vic Bigorre--Death and character of colonel Henry Sturgeon--Daring exploit of captain William Light--Combat of Tarbes--Soult retreats by forced marches to Toulouse--Wellington follows more slowly--Cavalry combat at St. Gaudens--The allies arrive in front of Toulouse--Reflections 603

Views of the commanders on each side--Wellington designs to throw a bridge over the Garonne at Portet above Toulouse, but below the confluence of the Arriege and Garonne--The river is found too wide for the pontoons--He changes his design--Cavalry action at St. Martyn de Touch--General Hill passes the Garonne at Pensaguel above the confluence of the Arriege--Marches upon Cintegabelle--Crosses the Arriege--Finds the country too deep for his artillery and returns to Pensaguel--Recrosses the Garonne--Soult fortifies Toulouse and the Mont Rave--Lord Wellington sends his pontoons down the Garonne--Passes that river at Grenade fifteen miles below Toulouse with twenty thousand men--The river floods and his bridge is taken up--The waters subside--The bridge is again laid--The Spaniards pass--Lord Wellington advances up the right bank to Fenouilhet--Combat of cavalry--The eighteenth hussars win the bridge of Croix d'Orade--Lord Wellington resolves to attack Soult on the 9th of April--Orders the pontoons to be taken up and relaid higher up the Garonne at Seilth in the night of the 8th--Time is lost in the execution and the attack is deferred--The light division cross at Seilth on the morning of the 10th--Battle of Toulouse 624

General observations and reflections 657

Lord William Bentinck's correspondence with sir Edward Pellew and lord Wellington about Sicily 691

General Nugent's and Mr. King's correspondence with lord William Bentinck about Italy 693

Extracts from the correspondence of sir H. Wellesley, Mr. Vaughan, and Mr. Stuart upon Spanish and Portuguese affairs 699

Justificatory pieces relating to the combats of Maya and Roncesvalles 701

Ditto ditto of Ordal 703

Official States of the allied army in Catalonia 704

Ditto of the Anglo-Portuguese at different epochs 705

Ditto of the French armies at different epochs 707

Extract from lord Wellington's order of movements for the battle of Toulouse 709

Note and morning state of the Anglo-Portuguese on the 10th of April, 1814 710

PLATES.

No. 1. Explanatory of the Catalonian Operations and plan of Position at Cape Salud.

NOTICE.

This volume was nearly printed when my attention was called to a passage in an article upon the duke of Wellington's despatches, published in the last number of the "British and Foreign Quarterly Review."

After describing colonel Gurwood's proceedings to procure the publication of the despatches the reviewer says,

For firstly, the duke of Wellington gave me access to the original morning states of his army for the use of my history; he permitted me to take them into my possession, and I still have possession of them.

Thirdly. Lord Fitzroy Somerset, with the consent of the duke of Wellington, put into my hands king Joseph's portfolio, taken at Vittoria and containing that monarch's correspondence with the emperor, with the French minister of war, and with the marshals and generals who at different periods were employed in the Peninsula. These also were documents of no slight importance for a history of the war, and they are still in my possession.

For these reasons he would not, he said, give me his own private papers, but he gave me the documents I have already noticed, and told me he would then, and always, answer any questions as to facts which I might in the course of my work think necessary to put. And he has fulfilled that promise rigidly, for I did then put many questions to him verbally and took notes of his answers, and many of the facts in my History which have been most cavilled at and denied by my critics have been related by me solely upon his authority. Moreover I have since at various times sent to the duke a number of questions in writing, and always they have been fully and carefully answered without delay, though often put when his mind must have been harassed and his attention deeply occupied by momentous affairs.

But though the duke of Wellington denied me access to his own peculiar documents, the greatest part of those documents existed in duplicate; they were in other persons' hands, and in two instances were voluntarily transferred with other interesting papers to mine. Of this truth the reader may easily satisfy himself by referring to my five first volumes, some of which were published years before colonel Gurwood's compilation appeared. He will find in those volumes frequent allusions to the substance of the duke's private communications with the governments he served; and in the Appendix a number of his letters, printed precisely as they have since been given by colonel Gurwood. I could have greatly augmented the number if I had been disposed so to swell my work. Another proof will be found in the Justificatory Pieces of this volume, where I have restored the whole reading of a remarkable letter of the duke's which has been garbled in colonel Gurwood's compilation, and this not from any unworthy desire to promulgate what the duke of Wellington desired to suppress, but that having long before attributed, on the strength of that passage, certain strong opinions to his grace, I was bound in defence of my own probity as an historian to reproduce my authority.

W. F. P. NAPIER.

JUSTIFICATORY NOTES.

Having in my former volumes printed several controversial papers relating to this History, I now complete them, thus giving the reader all that I think necessary to offer in the way of answer to those who have assailed me. The Letter to marshal Beresford and the continuation of my Reply to the Quarterly Review have been published before, the first as a pamphlet, the second in the London and Westminster Review. And the former is here reproduced, not with any design to provoke the renewal of a controversy which has been at rest for some years, but to complete the justification of a work which, written honestly and in good faith from excellent materials, has cost me sixteen years of incessant labour. The other papers being new shall be placed first in order and must speak for themselves.

ALISON.

Some extracts from Alison's History of the French Revolution reflecting upon the conduct of sir John Moore have been shewn to me by a friend. In one of them I find, in reference to the magazines at Lugo, a false quotation from my own work, not from carelessness but to sustain a miserable censure of that great man. This requires no further notice, but the following specimen of disingenuous writing shall not pass with impunity.

Speaking of the prevalent opinion that England was unable to succeed in military operations on the continent, Mr. Alison says:--

"In sir John Moore's case this universal and perhaps unavoidable error was greatly enhanced by his connection with the opposition party, by whom the military strength of England had been always underrated, the system of continental operations uniformly decried, and the power and capacity of the French emperor, great as they were, unworthily magnified."

Mr. Alison here proves himself to be one of those enemies to sir John Moore who draw upon their imaginations for facts and upon their malice for conclusions.

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