Such was the fight of Maya, a disaster, yet one much exaggerated by French writers, and by an English author misrepresented as a surprise caused by the negligence of the cavalry. General Stewart was surprised, his troops were not, and never did soldiers fight better, seldom so well. The stern valour of the ninety-second, principally composed of Irishmen, would have graced Thermopylæ. The Portuguese cavalry patroles, if any went out which is uncertain, might have neglected their duty, and doubtless the front should have been scoured in a more military manner; but the infantry picquets, and the light companies so happily ordered up by major Thorne, were ready, and no man wondered to see the French columns crown the great hill in front of the pass. Stewart expecting no attack at Maya, had gone to Elisondo leaving orders for the soldiers to cook; from his erroneous views therefore the misfortune sprung and from no other source. Having deceived himself as to the true point of attack he did not take proper military precautions on his own front; his position was only half occupied, his troops brought into action wildly, and finally he caused the loss of his guns by a misdirection as to the road. General Stewart was a brave, energetic, zealous, indefatigable man and of a magnanimous spirit, but he possessed neither the calm reflective judgment nor the intuitive genius which belongs to nature’s generals. [Sidenote: Soult’s Official Despatch, MSS.] It is difficult to understand count D’Erlon’s operations. Why, when he had carried the right of the position, did he follow two weak regiments with two divisions, and leave only one division to attack five regiments, posted on the strongest ground and having hopes of succour from Echallar? Certainly if Abbé’s division had acted with Maransin’s, Stewart who was so hardly pressed by the latter alone, must have passed the road from Echallar in retreat before general Barnes’s brigade arrived. On the other hand, Soult’s orders directed D’Erlon to operate by his left, with the view of connecting the whole army on the summit of the great chain of the Pyrenees. He should therefore either have used his whole force to crush the troops on the Atchiola before they could be succoured from Echallar; or, leaving Maransin there, have marched by the Maya road upon Ariscun to cut Sylveira’s line of retreat; instead of this he remained inactive upon the Col de Maya for twenty hours after the battle! And general Hill concentrating his whole force, now augmented by Barnes’s brigade, would probably have fallen upon him from the commanding rocks of Atchiola the next day, if intelligence of Cole’s retreat from the Roncesvalles passes had not come through the Alduides. This rendered the recovery of the Col de Maya useless, and Hill withdrawing all his troops during the night, posted the British brigades which had been engaged, together with one Portuguese brigade of infantry and a