from right to left, contrary to the apparent diurnal motion of the sun) which is looked upon as ominous of bad weather. It now came from the west and was rising to a gale. The ships of war could have fetched into Torbay, which has famous shelter from a westerly wind; but, fortunately, the body of the fleet was too far to leeward to fetch into this bay; for had we anchored there, the devastation that followed, dreadful as it was, would have been woefully outdone.

Just before the closing in of a November day, the Admiral made the signal to bear up for St. Helen's, the rendezvous we had left. Before it became dark, the fleet had time to wear, and to stand up channel, under their close-reefed main-top-sails and fore-sails, with the wind from the south-west, ominously backing to the southward and blowing harder and harder. As the night closed in, this perverse changing of wind still continued until it came from the south and south-south-east; from whence it blew a furious tempest, with that pitchy darkness made by the mass of water in the air, well known to sailors by the name of scud, while it yet retains the place of a low fringy cloud; but which now, joined with the surface of the sea blown into foam, formed one thick veil within which all was hidden.

I must here make a slight digression to give to such as are unacquainted with these matters, a clearer view of the circumstances of the fleet thus embayed upon a lee-shore. A little consideration will make it evident, that, although a ship, by setting her sails obliquely between the direction of the wind and that of her own length, may be impelled by the action of sails so set, in the direction of her length, not only at right angles to the wind, but with some oblique' inclination towards the point from whence it blows; yet, if the wind becomes so violent that the sails which produce this effect must be taken in, the pressure of the gale upon the mere hull and rigging will tend only to drive her sideways before it. In the most violent gales, however, by the yards on which the sails are furled being braced obliquely, and by the form of the ship's bottom, she is enabled to make a course, not exactly sideways before the wind, but one somewhere between that course and the point to which her head is directed. With all sail set, and smooth water, the true course which a ship makes through the water will deviate but little from that to which her head points, or looks up for, as it is called; but as the sail is reduced, and as the waves become higher, the deviation of the true course made, from the line indicated by the direction of her head, becomes greater. This angle of deviation is called lee-way; and a ship is said to make one, two, three, &c. points of lee-way according as the true course she makes through the water is one, two, or three points to leeward of that which her head looks up for. The technical anomaly which makes this term difficult to be understood by a landsman is, that the term way, when thus compounded, (lee-way) has no reference whatever to the rate or velocity with which the ship goes; but refers wholly to the angle above described.

The commencement of the tempest which I have mentioned, caught the fleet between the Bill of Portland and the Berry Head. The menof-war and some of the weatherly transports were yet hardly within the line which would connect those headlands; but, by reason of the broad angle of lee-way which they made, the most weatherly had now

no prospect of rounding the Bill of Portland on the one tack, or the Berry Head, with the Start Point stretching yet to windward of it, on the other. The more leewardly ships were already within the extensive bay, which is bounded by those headlands; and drawing near to the fearful lee-shore that extended itself between them. The tempest, now obstinately fixed in the south, continued to blow with unabated fury; and the fleet, thus caught, continued to drive towards this exposed coast, on which the foaming sea rolled its last outrageous burst, while the wasted water of the preceding wave was thrown back to swell the wild commotion of the next.

When the Admiral deemed the fleet to have drawn near enough to the Bill of Portland, I believe the signal was made to wear; but it was literally a signal made to the winds. No ship could see another at the distance of twice her own length; and the noise of the tempest made the report of guns as inaudible as their flash was invisible. Each ship was, therefore, in perfect darkness as to the position of those around her and, as the signal to wear was not heard, each wore according to her own reckoning, to make one more effort to avoid the nearest side of the bay in which we were thus engulfed, before she should reach her fate. In doing this, as she wore and stood to the westward, each had to perform the blindfold ordeal of threading her way among those which continued on the other tack. The anxiety to avoid collision with others was sufficiently on the stretch in all. The signal lanterns were kept lighted, and in readiness to have their covers pulled off, in order to be shown whenever it might be useful. "A good look-out before, there," from the quarter-deck, was answered every two minutes by "Ay, ay, Sir!" from the fore-castle and lee-gang-way. In about a quarter of an hour after we had wore, the look-out-man on the fore-castle called out " A ship close a-head, Sir!" "Hard a-port."+ "Signal men, two lights at the weather-cat-head!" "Man the mizenstay-sail, down-haul!" were three orders given by our excellent first lieutenant, in one breath, but with that loud, clear voice, and that distinct stop between each, that made the party to which each was addressed, feel that they were called upon for instant exertion.

For a time the helm had no effect; but as the mizen-stay-sail came down, our ship gradually fell off, and the figure of the other began to open on the weather-bow, lowering through the darkness with two lights at her lee-cat-head, to show that she was doing the right thing; while, by degrees, we fell off, and passed slowly to leeward of her, but so near, that each wave on which she rose, seemed as if it would launch over us the black mass which encumbered it. Some were not so fortunate. One ship was run down by another that remained to make the sad tale known. Others that came in contact went down together; and, though not in silence, at least with no noise that could

In fine weather, when ships go about from one tack to the other, they tack; that is, they go round with their heads towards the wind, until they bring it on the other side. If the water be smooth, and the operation be well managed, no ground is lost in this process. When there is a gale of wind and a high sea to contend with, ships cannot do this; and are, therefore, in that case obliged to wear; that is, to put before the wind, and from that position to haul up to the wind on the other tack. In doing this a good deal of ground must be lost.

+ The rule of the road is no paradox at sea. If you keep to the right you do not go wrong.

vie with the tempest that roared over, and left oblivion in the place where they had been.

Thus we went on, making our leeward course to the north-east on one tack, and to the north-west on the other, and by every stretch, still narrowing the limit of the next, and drawing nearer to the fatal coast on which each hour brought some poor devoted bark" to perform a new and short-lived tragedy. A white line of breakers now glared through the darkness; the hollows between the waves became deeper, and their towering heads more precipitous. One thundering bounce upon the ground gave a brief warning. One upward heave towards the steep beach, and the crashing backward-fall upon her broadside with the retiring surge, presented her decks to the next impending sea that burst upon them, and carried the shattered wreck of some good ship in its foam, while each following wave dashed the broken fragments on the beach, and swept them back to be again tossed by the next in restless succession.

The short day which followed saw a repetition of such scenes, and another black night, which promised their still more frequent recurrence, was soon to close in. About two o'clock, however, our ship could carry her fore-sail and main-top-sail. They were accordingly set. About four o'clock, some rain fell. The wind lulled, but piped up again in a strong gale from the north-west. The clouds began to break, and to assume that compact form and defined edge which makes what sailors call" a hard sky." The red glare of sunset shone through them. “ All hands make sail," announced the glad tidings, for all were pretty well aware of the scrape we had been in. "Away up! loose the fore and mizen-top-sails:" "Away up! loose the mainsails:" "Shake one reef out of the top-sails;" were now the orders that gave promise of weathering the Bill of Portland.

Next morning opened to smile upon the ruin that had been made; and saw the remainder of the fleet sailing up Channel, scattered far and wide, but all with their fine weather canvass spread. Our little ship being the repeating frigate, (a sort of aid-de-camp to the Admiral's ship,) was despatched to all quarters to repeat the Admiral's signals for calling them together, and that evening we anchored at St. Helen's.

At the dawn of the following day, a signal was made, which called our Captain on board the flag-ship; and another which warned us to prepare to weigh. Our Captain soon returned, and as he stepped on board, pronounced the words, "Up anchor!" In a quarter of an hour we were standing out to round Bembridge Ledge; and in an hour we were standing down Channel, with a clear sky, an easterly breeze; and, as we reeled merrily along, startling the sea-birds that were now riding on the rippling waves. We arrived in Portland Roads that evening. A person came off, who gave us the information we had come for, which consisted of the names of the lost ships, as far as they had yet been ascertained by fragments which bore them; with the melancholy addition that five hundred dead bodies had been picked up the preceding days, in a line of about four miles of the beach west of Portland; but we could not hear of any living thing that had been saved.

(To be continued.)

REMINISCENCES OF A SUBALTERN.

NO. VII.

Ar eleven o'clock at night, on the 9th of June 1811, the siege of Badajoz virtually ceased. From the moment the second attack against San Christoval was repulsed, Lord Wellington resolved to make the best of a bad business, and he converted the siege into a blockade.

On the 10th, the battering train and stores were removed from the trenches, and by the 13th our works were clear. The town was closely blockaded until the 17th, on which day we broke up from before the place, and crossing the Guadiana by the ford above San Christoval, reached the banks of the Caya, in the neighbourhood of Aronches, a little after noon.

Soult was aware of this movement, but whether he was apprehensive of its being a feint to draw him into a separate action before he was joined by the army of Portugal, or that the battle of Albuera had made him cautious of again coming in contact with the British troops, without a great superiority in numbers on his side, is best known to himself; but this much is certain, that although the road to Badajoz from Fuente-del-Maestro, by the village of Albuera, was open to him, he never once attempted to molest us.

It appeared from the different reports of our spies, that the whole disposable force, not only of the army of the South, but likewise that of Portugal, were in march against us; and Lord Wellington accordingly took up a defensive position near Elvas, with his advance at Campo Mayor, consisting of the 3rd and 7th divisions of infantry, while Blake's corps of Spaniards recrossed the Guadiana near Mertola.

The Dukes of Dalmatia and Ragusa formed their junction at Badajoz on the 28th, and the two Marshals dined there together on that day; great praise was bestowed upon General Phillipon for his fine defence of the place, and, as a matter of course, much bombastic stuff was trumpeted forth in the papers about the valour displayed by the Imperial soldiers on the occasion. Our losses were rated at

more than four times their real amount; and though no blame was attached by the enemy to our troops, the engineers were attacked with a severity that I have reason to think was unjust. One writer speaking on the subject says,

"But in spite of the valour of the assailants, they were repulsed; because, contrary to the rules of the art, they had not taken the precaution of being masters of the ditch, in order to prevent the entrance of the besieged into it. This blunder on the part of the English engineers had not escaped the observation of the French Governor, Phillipon. As soon as it was night, he sent miners into the ditch, to clean the foot of the breach, and thus render it impracticable. When the English came, they not only could not reach the steep breach by climbing, but their ladders also proved too short, on account of the height to which the miners had raised the new parapet."

And the same writer again observes,

"Had the engineers followed the rules of fortification with as much ability as his Lordship displayed in the application of the principles of the higher branches of tactics, Badajoz would, no doubt, have surrendered about

the 14th or 15th of June. It scarcely would be believed, were it not expressly mentioned in the official reports, that in the beginning of the nineteenth century, troops should have been sent to the assault with ladders after the breach had been judged practicable."

I shall leave it to the gentlemen of the Engineers to answer these remarks, but for myself, I cannot conceive how it would be possible for us to make ourselves "masters of the ditch," while there was a French garrison in the fort! What the general feeling on this subject may be, I profess myself ignorant of; the situation of troops so posted would, I have no doubt, be one of high distinction; but I am quite certain, that I know at the least one individual who would not give a pin's point to be amongst the number so honoured, and that individual is the writer of these "Reminiscences." As far as I have been able to collect the facts, and I have received my information from good, I might say, the best authority, our defeat before San Christoval arose from three causes; first, the want of knowledge displayed by the officer commanding the first attack of the real situation of the breach, and owing to the unfortunate circumstance of the engineer being killed at the onset; secondly, the shortness of the ladders, and the smallness of the storming party each night; and thirdly, the conduct of the men who were entrusted with the charge of the ladders-a foreign corps 'tis true; but why employ troops of this description upon a service so desperate?

There is no duty which a British soldier performs before an enemy that he does with so much reluctance-a retreat always excepted-as working in trenches. Although essentially necessary to the accomplishment of the most gallant achievement a soldier can aspire to-the storming a breach it is an inglorious calling; one full of danger, attended with great labour, and, what is even worse, with a deal of annoyance; and for this reason, that the soldiers are not only taken quite out of their natural line of action, but they are, if not entirely, at least partially commanded by officers, those of the Engineers, whose habits are totally different from those they have been accustomed to.

No two animals ever differed more completely in their propensities than the British engineer and the British infantry soldier; the latter delights in an open field, and a fair" stand-up-fight," where he meets his man or men; (for numbers, when it comes to a hand to hand business, are of little weight with the British soldier,) if he falls there, he does so, in the opinion of his comrades, with credit to himself; but a life lost in the trenches is looked upon as one thrown away and lost ingloriously. The engineer, on the contrary, braves all the dangers of a siege with a cheerful countenance, he even courts them, and no mole ever took greater delight in burrowing through a sand-hill, than an engineer does in mining a covert-way, or blowing up a counterscarp: not so with the infantry soldier, who is obliged to stand to be shot at, with a pick-axe or shovel in his hand, instead of his firelock and bayonet. If, then, this is a trying situation, as it unquestionably is for a soldier, where death by round-shot and shell in the works is comparatively less than it is at the moment of the assault of a breach, how much more care should there be taken in the selection of the ladder men, than appears to have been the case at San Christoval?

Beyond all question or doubt, the advance of a column to escalade