and the flotilla of gun-boats to assist a garrison which consisted of more than 10,000 men. Yet even those who fully understood the difficulties of the operation had nevertheless full confidence that it would succeed. Soon after midnight the troops were in motion; when within a short distance of Anglet, they turned by a crossroad toward the coast, marching in strict silence along the skirts of the enemy’s outposts. It was a dark night, the road narrow, deep in mud, and with ditches on either side; one of the 18-pounders was drawn too near the edge in the darkness, the side of the road gave way under its weight, and it sunk into the ditch, dragging the near horses after it. This delayed the march for some time, till, by the greatest exertions, the gun was drawn up out of the deep mud; but no ill consequence arose from this mischance; the enemy were not on the alert, and the troops arrived before daylight on the sand-hills which border the coast from the vicinity of Biaritz to the mouth of the Adour: the tract between these hills and the intrenched camp is almost wholly covered by the pine-wood called the Bois de Bayonne. At daybreak, two light battalions of the German legion patroled through the wood, and dislodged the enemy’s piquets, which retired from thence, and from the village of Anglet, into the intrenched camp. The first brigade of guards, under Colonel Maitland, debouched from the wood near the place where the signal-staff, known by the name of the _Balise Orientale_, had stood, which was on a high sand-hill nearly opposite Boucaut. The ground here could not be reconnoitred till the enemy’s piquets were driven in; and this of course was avoided till the last moment, that no alarm might be given. It had been supposed that the guns might be brought within 700 or 800 yards of the Sappho, and that they might sink her, lest she should be employed against the bridge; but, when they had been brought with great labour through the deep sandy ground, it was necessary to place them where they were sheltered from the guns of the intrenched camp, and this was in a situation 1500 yards from the corvette. There they were placed in battery, and the brigade was posted behind some sand-hills, close to the marsh which protected the front of the camp. Don Carlos d’España meantime made a demonstration on the heights above Anglet, to prevent the enemy from detaching any troops.