But a circumstance had happened to check this spirit upon its first manifestation, a few days before the passage of the ♦CONDUCT OF THE FRENCH PEASANTRY.♦ Bidassoa. The Portugueze, when they surprised and took a French piquet on the side of Roncesvalles, were fired at by the peasantry: they took fourteen of them, and these men were immediately marched to Passages, there to be embarked for England as prisoners of war. This treatment had the effect of intimidating the people, while it awakened no spirit of vengeance, because it was perceived to be nothing more than what was strictly just. That spirit might have been roused if Lord Wellington had not by timely severity effectually checked the license which the troops were but too ready to have taken, and from which it had not been possible to protect the Spaniards in the Pyrenean valleys. The French peasantry did not forsake their houses when the allies crossed the Bidassoa. The inhabitants of the large village of Urogne did not leave it till the battle approached, and then they collected in an adjoining field; but they dispersed as soon as flames broke out among their dwellings; for the troops who entered it began to plunder ... they set several houses on fire, and drank to such excess that, had the enemy been on the alert, he might easily have captured or destroyed them. Some of the officers were more culpable than the troops, for they used no exertions to prevent the outrages which they saw. Lord Wellington, as soon as he was informed of this misconduct, republished his former orders, and accompanied them with a severe reprimand, declaring his determination not to command officers who would not obey his orders, and of sending some of them, who had been thus grossly unmindful of their duty, to England, that their names might be brought under the notice of the Prince Regent.