seventh division rashly pushed into the village of Sarre, but they were quickly repulsed and would have lost the camp and works taken the day before if the Spaniards had not succoured them. The whole loss on the three days of fighting was about fourteen hundred French and sixteen hundred of the allies, one half being Spaniards, but many of the wounded were not brought in until the third day after the actions, and several perished miserably where they fell, it being impossible to discover them in those vast solitudes. Some men were also lost from want of discipline; having descended into the French villages they got drunk and were taken the next day by the enemy. Nor was the number small of those who plundered in defiance of lord Wellington’s proclamation; for he thought it necessary to arrest and send to England several officers, and renewed his proclamation, observing that if he had five times as many men he could not venture to invade France unless marauding was prevented. It is remarkable that the French troops on the same day acted towards their own countrymen in the same manner, but Soult also checked the mischief with a vigorous hand, causing a captain of some reputation to be shot as an example, for having suffered his men to plunder a house in Sarre during the action. With exception of the slight checks sustained at Sarre and Ainhoa, the course of these operations had been eminently successful, and surely the bravery of troops who assailed and carried such stupendous positions must be admired. To them the unfinished state of the French works was not visible. Day after day, for more than a month, entrenchment had risen over entrenchment, covering the vast slopes of mountains which were scarcely accessible from their natural steepness and asperity. This they could see, yet cared neither for the growing strength of the works, the height of the mountains, nor the breadth of the river with its heavy sands, and its mighty rushing tide; all were despised, and while they marched with this confident valour, it was observed that the French fought in defence of their dizzy steeps with far less fierceness than, when, striving against insurmountable obstacles, they attempted to storm the lofty rocks of Sauroren. Continual defeat had lowered their spirit, but the feebleness of the defence on this occasion may be traced to another cause. It was a general’s not a soldier’s battle. Wellington had with overmastering combinations overwhelmed each point of attack. Taupin’s and Maucune’s divisions were each less than five thousand strong, and they were separately assailed, the first by eighteen the second by fifteen thousand men, and at neither point were Reille and Clauzel able to bring their reserves into action before the positions were won. [Sidenote: Soult’s Official Correspondence with the Minister of War, MSS.]