Lord Wellington having resolved not to invade France at this time, was unprepared for so great an operation as throwing his right and centre upon Soult’s left; and it is obvious also that on the 30th he expected only a partial attack at San Marcial. The order he first gave to assail D’Erlon’s position, and then the counter-order for the seventh division to come to Lesaca, prove this, because the latter was issued after Clauzel’s numbers and the direction of his attack were ascertained. The efforts of two Portuguese brigades against D’Erlon sufficed therefore to render null the duke of Dalmatia’s great combinations, and his extreme sensitiveness to their operations marks the vice of his own. Here it may be observed, that the movement of the forty-third the rifle companies and the Spaniards, to secure the right flank of Inglis, was ill-arranged. Dispatched by different roads without knowing precisely the point they were to concentrate at, each fell in with the enemy at different places; the Spaniards got under fire and were forced to alter their route; the forty-third companies stumbling on a French division had to fall back half a mile; it was only by thus feeling the enemy at different points that the destined position was at last found, and a disaster was scarcely prevented by the fury of the tempest. Nevertheless those detachments were finally well placed to have struck a blow the next morning, because their post was only half an hour’s march from the high ground behind Vandermaesen’s column when he forced the bridge at Vera, and the firing would have served as a guide. The remainder of Kempt’s brigade could also have moved upon the same point from Lesaca. It is however very difficult to seize such occasions in mountain warfare where so little can be seen of the general state of affairs. A more obvious advantage was neglected by general Skerrit. The defence of the bridge at Vera by a single company of rifles lasted more than an hour, and four brigades of the enemy, crossing in a tumultuous manner, could not have cleared the narrow passage after it was won in a moment. Lord Wellington’s despatch erroneously describes the French as passing under the fire of great part of general Skerrit’s brigade, whereas that officer remained in order of battle on the lower slopes of Santa Barbara, half a mile distant, and allowed the enemy to escape. It is true that a large mass of French troops were on the counter slopes of the Bayonette mountain, beyond Vera, but the seventh division, being then close to San Barbara, would have prevented any serious disaster if the blow had failed. A great opportunity was certainly lost, but war in rough mountains is generally a series of errors. CHAPTER IV. [Sidenote: 1813. September.]