The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 | Page 7

as their enemies, nor did they neglect
any means which an accurate knowledge of engineering could point out,
for the defence of what they justly considered as the key of the entire
position. In addition to its own very regular and well-constructed
fortifications, two strong redoubts were thrown up, on two sides of the
fort, upon the only spots of ground calculated for the purpose; both of
which, I was informed by my guide, were undermined and loaded with
gunpowder, ready to be sprung as soon as they should fill into our
hands. They had judged, and judged correctly, that if ever the place
should be invested, it would be that the trenches would be opened and
the breaching batteries erected; and they made every preparation to
meet the danger which great prudence and military skill could suggest.
Bayonne, though a populous place, does not cover so much ground as a
stranger would be led to suppose. Like most walled towns, its streets,
with the exception of one or two, are in general narrow, and the houses
lofty: but it is compact, and, on the whole, clean, and neatly built. The
number of inhabitants I should be inclined to estimate at somewhere
about thirty thousand, exclusive of the garrison, which at this time
amounted to fourteen or fifteen thousand men; but as most of the
families appear to live in the style of those in the old town of
Edinburgh, that is to say, several under the same roof, though each in a
separate story or flat, it is not difficult to conceive how they contrive to
find sufficient room, within a compass apparently so narrow. Of its
commerce and manufactures I can say little, except that I should not
imagine either to be extensive. I am led to form this opinion, partly
from having seen no shipping at the wharfs, and partly because the
Adour, though here both wide and deep, is rendered unnavigable to
vessels of any size, by a shallow or bar at its mouth. There was, indeed,
a sloop of war close to the town, but how it got there I am at a loss to
conceive, unless it were built upon the river, and kept as an additional

protection against a surprise from the water. The shops are, however,
good, particularly those where jewellery is sold; an article in the setting
and adorning of which the French, if they do not excel us in really
substantial value, undoubtedly surpass us in elegance.
When I had taken as complete a survey of the town as I felt disposed to
take, I crossed the bridge with the intention of inspecting the interior of
the citadel. Here, however, I was disappointed, no strangers being
admitted within its gates; but as there was no objection made to my
reconnoitring it from without, I proceeded towards the point where our
trenches had been dug, and where it had been designed to breach and
storm the place. To this I was urged by two motives, partly from the
desire of obtaining the best view possible of the fort, and partly that I
might examine the ground upon which the desperate affair of the 14th
of April took place. The reader cannot have forgotten, that some hours
before daylight on the morning of that day, a vigorous and
well-arranged sortie was made by the garrison, and that it was not
without hard fighting and a severe loss on both sides that the attack was
finally repulsed.
Mounting the heights, I soon arrived at St. Etienne, a little village
nearly on a level with the citadel, and not more than a quarter of a mile
from its walls. From this point I could satisfy my curiosity to the full,
and as the account may not, perhaps, be uninteresting, I shall describe,
as well as I am able, the scene which here met my eyes.
St. Etienne
The ridge of little hills upon which the fort and village are built, though
it rises by gentle gradation from the sea, towards the spot where I now
stood, is nevertheless intersected and broken here and there by deep
glens or ravines. Two of these glens, one to the right, the other to the
left, chance to occur immediately under the ramparts of the fortress,
supplying, in some measure, the purposes of a ditch, and leaving a sort
of table or elevated neck of land between them, the extremity of which
is occupied by the village. On this neck of land the besieged had
constructed one of the redoubts to which I alluded as having been lately
thrown up; whilst on another table, at the opposite side of the left

ravine, which winds round in the direction of the wall, as nearly as if it
were the work of