In the night of the 9th D’Erlon, mistrusting the strength of his own position, had sent that general orders to march from Bidaray to Espelette, but the messenger did not arrive in time and on the morning of the 10th about eleven o’clock Foy, following Soult’s previous instructions, drove Mina’s battalions from the Gorospil mountain; then pressing against the flank of Morillo he forced him also back fighting to the Puerto de Maya. However D’Erlon’s battle was at this period receding fast, and Foy fearing to be cut off retired with the loss of a colonel and one hundred and fifty men, having however taken a quantity of baggage and a hundred prisoners. Continuing his retreat all night he reached Cambo and Ustaritz on the 11th, just in time to relieve Abbé’s division at those posts, and on the 12th defended them against general Hill. Such were the principal circumstances of the battle of the Nivelle, whereby Soult was driven from a mountain position which he had been fortifying for three months. He lost four thousand two hundred and sixty-five men and officers including twelve or fourteen hundred prisoners, and one general was killed. His field-magazines at St. Jean de Luz and Espelette fell into the hands of the victors, and fifty-one pieces of artillery were taken, the greater part having been abandoned in the redoubts of the low country to sir John Hope. The allies had two generals, Kempt and Byng, wounded, and they lost two thousand six hundred and ninety-four men and officers. OBSERVATIONS. 1º. Soult fared in this battle as most generals will who seek by extensive lines to supply the want of numbers or of hardiness in the troops. Against rude commanders and undisciplined soldiers lines may avail, seldom against accomplished generals, never when the assailants are the better soldiers. Cæsar at Alesia resisted the Gauls, but his lines served him not at Dyrrachium against Pompey. Crassus failed in Calabria against Spartacus, and in modern times the duke of Marlborough broke through all the French lines in Flanders. If Wellington triumphed at Torres Vedras it was perhaps because his lines were not attacked, and, it may be, Soult was seduced by that example. His works were almost as gigantic and upon the same plan, that is to say a river on one flank, the ocean on the other, and the front upon mountains covered with redoubts and partially protected by inundations. But the duke of Dalmatia had only three months to complete his system, his labours were under the gaze of his enemy, his troops, twice defeated during the execution, were inferior in confidence and numbers to the assailants. Lord Wellington’s lines at Torres Vedras had been laboured for a whole year. Massena only knew of them when they stopped his progress, and his army inferior in numbers had been repulsed in the recent battle of Busaco.