Reminiscences of Captain Gronow | Page 9

the French general perceived that we had
ordered preparations to receive him, he sent a flag of truce to demand a
cessation of hostilities, saying that he wanted to shoot an officer and
several men for acts of robbery committed by them, with every sort of
atrocity, on the farmers and peasantry of the country. The execution
took place in view of both armies, and a terrible lesson it was. I cannot
specify the date of this event, but think it must have been the latter end
of November, 1813. About the same time General Harispe, who
commanded a corps of Basques, issued a proclamation forbidding the
peasantry to supply the English with provisions or forage, on pain of
death; it stated that we were savages, and, as a proof of this, our horses
were born with short tails. I saw this absurd proclamation, which was
published in French and in the Basque languages, and distributed all
over the country. Before we left the neighbourhood of Bayonne for
Bordeaux, a soldier was hanged for robbery, on the sands of the Adour.
This sort of punishment astonished the French almost as much as it did
the soldier. On a march we were very severe, and if any of our men
were caught committing an act of violence or brigandage, the offender
was tried by a drum-head court-martial, and hanged in a very short
time.
I knew an officer of the 18th Hussars, W. R., young, rich, and a
fine-looking fellow, who joined the army not far from St Sebastian. His
stud of horses was remarkable for their blood, his grooms were English,
and three in number. He brought with him a light cart to carry forage,
and a fourgon for his own baggage. All went on well, till he came to go
on outpost duty; but not finding there any of the comforts to which he
had been accustomed, he quietly mounted his charger, told his
astonished sergeant that campaigning was not intended for a gentleman,
and instantly galloped off to his quarters, ordering his servants to pack
up everything immediately, as he had hired a transport to take him off
to England. He left us before any one had time to stop him; and though
despatches were sent off to the Commander-in-Chief, requesting that a
court-martial might sit to try the young deserter, he arrived home long
enough before the despatches to enable him to sell out of his regiment.
He deserved to have been shot.
Sir John Hope, who commanded our corps d'armee at Bayonne, had his
quarters at a village on the Adour, called Beaucauld. He was good

enough to name me to the command of the village; which honour I did
not hold for many days, for the famous sortie from Bayonne took place
soon after, and the general was made prisoner.
SIR JOHN WATERS
Amongst the distinguished men in the Peninsular war whom my
memory brings occasionally before me, is the well-known and highly
popular Quartermaster General Sir John Waters, who was born at
Margam, a Welsh village in Glamorganshire. He was one of those
extraordinary persons that seem created by kind nature for particular
purposes; and, without using the word in an offensive sense, he was the
most admirable spy that was ever attached to an army. One would
almost have thought that the Spanish war was entered upon and carried
on in order to display his remarkable qualities. He could assume the
character of Spaniards of every degree and station, so as to deceive the
most acute of those whom he delighted to imitate. In the posada of the
village he was hailed by the contrabandist or the muleteer as one of
their own race; in the gay assemblies he was an accomplished hidalgo;
at the bull-fight the toreador received his congratulations as from one
who had encountered the toro in the arena; in the church he would
converse with the friar upon the number of Ave Marias and
Pater-nosters which could lay a ghost, or tell him the history of
everyone who had perished by the flame of the Inquisition, relating his
crime, whether carnal or anti-Catholic; and he could join in the
seguadilla or in the guaracha. But what rendered him more efficient
than all was his wonderful power of observation and accurate
description, which made the information he gave so reliable and
valuable to the Duke of Wellington. Nothing escaped him. When
amidst a group of persons, he would minutely watch the movement,
attitude, and expression of every individual that composed it; in the
scenery by which he was surrounded he would carefully mark every
object:- not a tree, not a bush, not a large stone, escaped his observation;
and it was said that in a cottage he noted every piece of